JUWAn-HAWTHORJ]*

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the Library of
IRVING GOODWIN VANN, '63
Gift of his children
FLORENCE VANN FOWLER
IRVING DILLAYE VANN, '97

EVANGELINA CiSNEROS

THE STORY OF
[^ANGELINA QSNER0S
(EVANGELINA BETANCOURT COSIO Y CISNEROS)
TOLD BY HERSELF

HER RESCUE BY
KARL DECKER
INTRODUCTION BY
JULIAN HAWTHORNE

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FREDERIC REMINGTON
THOMAS FLEMING
AND OTHERS

MDCCCXCVIII
CONTINENTAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
25 PARK PLACE, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
CONTINENTAL PUBLISHING CO.

PREFACE
IT was in response to the demand of the
men and women of America that the
New York Journal rescued Miss Cis
neros from the power of Spain. It was a-*
national demand that this young girl be
saved from the infamies of Spanish prison
life. The Journal has done its part. Miss
Cisneros is now the ward of the American
people. Although the Journal has done its part, it
does not intend to let the matter rest there.
Miss Cisneros must be taken care of. A
fund must be established for her support.
The Journal believes it will meet the wishes
of the true-hearted Americans, who demand
ed her release, if it affords them an oppor
tunity to contribute to this fund.
It seemed best, too, that this young Cuban
girl should not be forced to ask charity even
of her American friends.
It was decided, therefore, to publish this
book — in which Miss Cisneros herself tells
the story of her imprisonment and rescue.
Every copy sold will be sold for the benefit
of Miss Cisneros.

m WOMEN

©0NTENTS
PAGE
Preface  7
Dedication  9
Mr. Hawthorne's Introduction  15
Protests and Petitions  29
Mr. Decker's Story  57
Miss Cisneros' Story  119
History of Cuba  227
Chronology  255

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAOE
Evangelina Cisneros,  4
Murdering the Wounded  21
Morro Castle  33
Cuban Refugees  4.9
Karl Decker's Portrait  63
Decker in Havana  79
Miss Cisneros in Cuban Dress  97
For Cuba Libre  109
Tobacco Plantation  127
A Foraging Expedition  143
A Spanish Cavalryman  161
Spanish infantryman  1S1
Rescuer and Rescued  201
At the Reception  219
Spanish Levies  t  233
An Insurgent Battery  245
Map of Cuba  259

Julian Hawthorne's
Introduction

INTRODUCTION \ JOTHING in modern his
tory can be exactly com
pared with this story ;
and few things in orthodox
fiction either — if Realism be
orthodox. Mr. Anthony
Hope might have imagined
it ; and possibly he is regret
ting that he did not. We are
 ,  r , indeed accustomed to finding
truth stranger than fiction;
but it is a new sensation to find it also more
romantic — more in the fashion of the Ara
bian Nights and the Gothic fairy-tales of
Mediaeval ages. The New Journalism has""1
achieved many wonders; but nothing so
wonderful as when its best representative,
the New York Journal, conceived the idea
of freeing an imprisoned maiden from a
cruel tyrant, and carried the conception into
successful realization through the agency
of Mr. Karl Decker. No adventure ofj
modern times has so appealed to the imag-

l8 INTRODUCTION.
ination of the world ; had the knight of La
Mancha not been a Spaniard, and had the
achievement been less splendidly practical,
we might call it Quixotic. Possibly even
the Spaniards themselves, when they have
begun to forget that the Pearl of the Antil
les ever belonged to them, and when they
remember their own romantic and heroic
exploits in the days of the Cid, may bring
themselves to admit that the story of Karl
Decker and Evangelina Cisneros can fitly
take its place beside the most brilliant
and moving of their ancient chronicles of
l. daring.
*" With the telling of the story the present
writer, of course, has nothing to do; it is
told by the protagonists as only they could
do it. But I may be permitted to observe
that in its setting and background, in its
dramatis personce, in its dash, intrigue, and
cumulative interest, it is almost ideally per
fect. The desirable component elements
are all present. A tropic island, em
bosomed in azure seas off the coast of the
Spanish Main ; a cruel war, waged by the
minions of despotism against the spirit of
patriotism and liberty; a beautiful maiden,

JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 1 9
risking all for her country, captured, in
sulted, persecuted, and cast into a loath
some dungeon. None could be more inno
cent, constant and adorable than she; none
more wicked, detestable and craven than
her enemies. All is right and lovable on
the one side, all ugly and hateful on the
other. As in the old Romances, there is no
uncertainty as to which way our sympathies
should turn. The opposition is as clean and
clear as between black and white. Such
was the preliminary situation as the Journal
found it. ^
There is nothing precipitate about the
newspaper's action. We may liken it to
that of some puissant prince of fairy legend,
despatching a courteous but cogent message
to the Ogre, calling his attention to the
wrong done his captive, and demanding
justice in her behalf. This message, though
weighted with the names of the womanhood
of America and England, and with those
of many famous personages of the other
sex, produced no noticeable effect upon the
Ogre. He had made up his mind to torture]
and devour his victim in the wicked old
ogreish way, and was not to be diverted

20 INTRODUCTION.
from his purpose by any considerations of
civilized humanity.
At this point the realistic novelist would
end his narrative, fearing he had already
ventured too far. One must stick to proba
bilities ; Congress sets the example of limit
ing its activities to diplomatic pourparlers;
and no one with any regard for the modesty
of nature would dream of going any further.
But fortunately for Evangelina Cisneros,
the proprietors of the Journal would rather
make a good thing real than debate, whether
or not so good a thing as Evangelina 's
rescue would be a probable incident.
The Journal, indeed, made but sparing
allusions to the failure of its first effort; and
hasty judges may have inferred that it had
given up the enterprise. Yet, when one
thought of it, there was something ominous
in its very silence. It was a pregnant
silence; it meant business; and — as the
world now knows — the most surprising
business that ever any newspaper was con
cerned in.
I was not in the least on the inside in this
affair; I surmise very few persons were.
But during the silence in question a young

MURDERING THE CUBAN WOUNDED.

By Frederic Remington,

JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 23
gentleman named Karl Decker received cer
tain instructions, acted upon them with
alacrity, and had transported himself to
Havana before any of us had the ghost of a
suspicion that anything was in the wind.
What he did there and how he did it, you
will know when you have read this book.
It was my fortune to be among the first to
greet him on his return ; and I had not long
had my eyes on him, and listened to his
quiet, low-voiced talk, before I understood
that he was just the man to have rescued
Evangelina Cisneros. You might pass him"-!
in the street without noticing that he was
anything more than tall and good-looking ;
but a man must be a great deal besides that
before he can perform such a feat as that
which stands to Karl Decker's credit. He
must be a man from every point of view. J
He is, in fact, a young American of the
best and oldest strain, with the Constitution
in his backbone and the Declaration of In
dependence in his eyes. In spite of his
quietness and modesty, his face shows bold
ness to the verge of rashness, and perhaps a
little beyond that verge, upon occasion ; but
tempered with an abiding sense of humor

24 INTRODUCTION.
and sterling common-sense and sanity.
Beyond his frank and simple bearing was
conveyed the impression that here was one
who could keep his own counsel: could
hide a purpose in the depths of his soul, as
a torpedo is hidden in the sea, and explode
it at the proper moment in the vitals of his
adversary. He had imagination to con
ceive, ingenuity to plan, coolness and reso
lution to carry out, and then — best of all —
that wonderful power of belief in the possi
bility of the impossible which is the final
cause of most of the memorable exploits of
men. Of course he had the courage to risk
his life — many men have that: but to risk
it in such a long-drawn, hopeless way ! We
have to go back to Cushing, Paul Jones and
Nelson to find any parallel to that. To
show how much better truth is than fiction
— even romantic fiction — we must bear in
mind that the romantic novelist would in
all probability have made the rescue suc
cessful at the first attempt, and thereby have
lost the finest touch of the whole transac
tion. After a long and anxious period of
preparation, we have the man keyed up to
concert-pitch, tense and concentrated, his

JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 25
soul forcing his body up to the supreme test
and moment — and then somebody stirs
down in the prison room, and the affair
must be postponed. Pour-and-twenty hours
must drag by before the adventure can be
resumed. During those interminable hoursj
he must reflect that very likely the half-
sawn bar has been noticed, and that when
he gets back to his place on the roof he will
find, not Evangelina, but the muzzles of
half-a-dozen Spanish rifles peeping through
the window. With that anticipation in his
mind, in the radiant tropic moqnlight, he
must cross that awful little ladder again and
make his way to the jaws of death. How
can he do it? Does he himself know? He
knows that he did do it; and probably he
did it without the faintest idea of not doing
it. It was just a newspaper assignment,
that's all, which he had accepted, and
which, as a matter of course, he would ful
fil — or die ! It might be more reasonable to
put it the other way about : he would die —
or fulfil it. Well, the miracle takes place ;
the Ogre is defrauded ; the maiden is re
scued; we hear the cab rattling over the
pavements in the night — silence : she and

26 INTRODUCTION.
the hero have vanished into the unknown,
and all is well. Another newspaper reporter
has done his duty, and the managing editor
permits himself a smile of satisfaction.
I must "admit that one anxiety haunted
me from the first: I was afraid that Evan
gelina would turn out to be less beautiful
than had been alleged. In newspaperdom
all women are presumed to be beautiful un
til they have been proved ugly; and it
seemed to me that precisely because the
ideal had been realized in all other respects
there would be a break at this point, and
that our heroine would outwardly at least
, fail to come up to the fairy-tale standard.
Such was my lack of faith ; and I did not
deserve', therefore, to be so delightfully dis
appointed. No fairy princess could be
more lovely than this fairy-like little Cuban
maiden ; her features have the delicate re
finement only given by race ; her eyes are
liquid darkness, her smile flashes like light,
expressions vibrate over her vivid face like
the play of colors on the humming-bird ;
her movements are all grace and charm.
She is a heroine worth daring an army of
. Ogres for, even for her own sake. But the

JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 27
act which freed her has a significance far
beyond its personal relation to Evangelina.
Perhaps I need not dwell upon this aspect1
of the case. It is obvious enough. An
American newspaper has shown America
what she ought to do. Evangelina is not
the only Cuban woman whom Weyler, with
the connivance of the Spanish Government,
has outraged. On the contrary, she is the
representative of them all. This whole
nation has risen to welcome her from her
captivity, and to honor her rescuer. Wej
pronounce the deed good and righteous
and well done. We feel that there are
higher and worthier warrants for action
than the stipulations of international law.
We owe all that we are to liberty ; and from
those to whom much is given much shall
be required. If we do not love liberty for
others as well as for courselves, we are not
deserving of it. In the person of Evan-"1
gelina Cisneros, Cuba appeals to us. With
what grace can we receive the one and repelj
the other?

J~UA^. o^^yjj-zuJ^i ^t^7W^^_,

Protests and Petitions

THE WOMEN OF AMERICA

MRS. DAVIS.

HE events that culminated
in the rescue of Evangelina
Cosio y Cisneros go to
make up a story little less
than wonderful.
Atrocities in Cuba had
come to be the most com
monplace of news. Every
mail from the island
brought tidings of mur
ders, burnings and other outrages. Even when
the victims were women, so accustomed had
the world grown to such tales ot horror, that
little comment was occasioned. At intervals
for a period of over a year through the Cuban
news ran the story of one Cuban girl, who
for alleged complicity in an uprising in the
Isle of Pines had been cast into the foul
prison for abandoned women in Havana. j
She was only eighteen years old, cultured,
talented and beautiful, and the thing that
made her case stand out among so many
wrongs was that she was being persecuted,

32 THE WOMRN
not for any part she had taken in rebellion
against Spain, but for resisting the insulting
advances of a savage in Spanish uniform
whose brutality had brought him well earned
disgrace. The New York Journal of August 17th,
1897, contained this message from a staff cor
respondent in Cuba :
"Havana, August 16th. — The trial of
Evangelina Cosio y Cisneros for rebellion is
concluded, but the court-marshal's verdict is
withheld in accordance with the usual cus
tom until it is approved by the Captain-Gen
eral. The Fiscal at the opening of the trial
demanded that she be sentenced to twenty
years' imprisonment in an African penal set
tlement. The withholding of the verdict is
almost certain evidence of her conviction.
Even the Spaniards in civil life here are hor
ror-stricken at the idea of a young girl being
condemned to the awful prison. There is
very little chance of her escape from this fate.
Public opinion has not the slightest weight
with the military court that tried her."
This was followed by a statement of the
girl's case and a short account of her life.
Her relationship with the gentlest families in

MORRO CASTLE, AT THE ENTRANCE OF HAVANA HARBOR.

OF AMERICA.

35

Cuba was explained, and some idea was given
of what the fate, to which she was in all prob
ability doomed, meant to a pure young girl
who had been all her life
tenderly guarded and cared
for. Two of the girl's prison
companions, Senora Agra
monte De Sanchez and
Senorita Maria Aguilar, told
of her life in that hideous
prison in Havana. These
two ladies were political
prisoners like Miss Cisneros.
Mrs. Sanchez is .seventy-two
years old, but was locked up among the out
casts of Havana because her five sons occu
pied distinguished' posts in the Cuban Army.
Miss Aguilar's offense was that her brothers
were fighting Spain.
"When we were first put into Recojidas,"
said the old lady, "we saw this young girl
among the awful women for whom the prison
was originally intended. We called her to
us, and learned from her own lips who she
was. Evangelina was even then in the last
stages of despair. She did not know why
she was thrown into such a foul place, she,

36 THE WOMEN
who has been accustomed to civilization's
gentlest and most refined ways. Even the
food given her was unfit to eat. We saw she
was a girl of intelligence and refinement,
but with absolutely no experience — child that
she was — and we sought to cheer and com
fort her. We told her to stay by us when
ever it was possible, and never to remain
more than she bad to among the other
prisoners — women of the lowest charac
ter." Miss Aguilar said Miss Cisneros still bore
the marks on her wrists made by the hand
cuffs with which she had been manacled in the
Isle of Pines.
Both of these ladies were horrified at the
idea of a poor young girl's being sent to
Africa, where she would be at the absolute
mercy of Spain's worst criminals.
This presentation of the case of the hap
less Cuban maiden awoke an immediate re
sponse. The women of America interested
themselves at once, and through the Journal,
put forth every effort to procure clemency
for her. Almost the first of the noblewomen
who came to her aid was Mrs. Jefferson
Davis, the widow of the President of the

OF AMERICA. 37
Confederate States. The Journal cabled her
appeal to Madrid. It was as follows :
"To Her Majesty Maria Cristina,
Queen Regent of Spain:
' 'Dear Madam : In common with
many of my country women I have
been much moved by
the accounts of the
arrest and trial of
Senorita Evange
lina Cisneros. Of
course, at this great
distance, I am ig
norant oj the jull
particulars of her
case. But I do know
she is young, defense
less and in sore
TT QUEEN REGENT OF SPAM.
straits. However,
all the world is familiar with the shin
ing deeds of the first lady of Spain,
who has so splendidly illustrated the
virtues which exalt a wife and mot Iter,
and who has added to these the wis
dom of a statesman and the patience
and fortitude oj a saint.

38 THE women
"To you I appeal lo extend your
powerful protection over this poor cap-
live girl — a child almost in years —
to save her from a fate worse than
death. I am sure you? kind heart
does not ptompt you to vengeance,
even though the provocation may have
been great. I entreat you to give her
to the women of America, to live
among us in peace.
' ' We will become sureties that her
life in future will be one long thank
offering for your clemency.
"Do not, dear Madam, refuse this
boon to us and we will always pray
for the prosperity of the young King,
your son, and for that of his wise
and self-abnegating mother.
"Your admiring and respecting
petitioner,
Varina Jefferson Davis.
August iSlh, 1897.
The same night that this was cabled Mrs.
Julia Ward Howe, the author of the " Battle
Hymn of the Republic," gave to the journal
an appeal to His Holiness Pope Leo XIII.,

OF AMERICA.

39

which the fournal immediately cabled to
Rome: To His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII.
Most Holy Father: To you, as the
head of Catholic Christendom, we
appeal for aid in behalf of Evan
gelina Cosio y Cisneros, a young
lady of Cuba, one of whose neat rela
tives is concerned in the present war,
in which she herself has
part. She has been
arrested, tried by court
martial, and is in danger
of suffering a sentence
more cruel than death —
that of twenty years oj
exile and imprisonment
in the Spanish penal col
ony of Ceuta, in Africa,
where no woman has ever
before been sent, and where, besides en
during every hardship and indignity,
she would have for her companions
the lowest criminals and outcasts.
We implore you, Holy Father, to
emulate the action of that Providence

JULIA WARD liOWE.

40 THE WOMEN
which interests itself in the fall of a
sparrow. A single word from you
will surely induce the Spanish Gov
ernment to abstain from this act of
military vengeance, which would
greatly discredit it in the eyes of the
civilized world.
We devoutly hope that your wisdom
will see fit to utter this word, and to
make not us alone, but all humanity,
your debtors.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
Mrs. Howe also addressed a call to all
good men and true women of America, ask
ing them to make this girl's cause their own.
This the Journal published with Mrs. Davis'
petition to the Queen and the appeal to His
Holiness.
TO ALL GOOD MEN AND TRUE
WOMEN:
The deplorable events of the Cuban
war seems to have reached their climax
in the arrest and probably condemna
tion of one innocent young girl,
Evangelina Cisneros, the niece of a
prominent conspirator, but guiltless

OF AMERICA. 41
herself of any act of rebellion against
the Government of Spain. She has
already suffered a degrading and
undeserved imprisonment, and is
now . threatened with a sentence
which would condemn her to wear
out her young life in a penal colony
whose discipline is administered with
all the cruelty of which the Spanish
war has shown itself capable.
How can we think of this pure
flower of maidenhood condemned to
live with felons and outcasts, with
out succor, without protection, to
labor under a torrid sky, suffering
privation, indignity and torment
worse than death ? Public opinio?i,
it is said, cannot avail against this
act of military vengeance — -vengeance
to be wreaked upon an innocent vic
tim. To what and to whom, then,
shall we appeal? To the sense of
justice of the civilized world; to all
good men and true women; to every
parent to whom a child's honor is
dear; to every brother who would
defend a sister from outrage.

42 THE WOMEN
Let the protest ring throughout
Christendom, and if this poor girl
must meet this dreadful doom, let
her know that the world's respect for
the Spanish civilization will die be
fore she does.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
These ladies felt the most intense interest
in the persecuted girl.
" Anything I can do," said Mrs. Davis, " I
will willingly do to aid that unfortunate
child. I am a mother, and my heart goes
out to her."
The example of these two noble women
fired the womanhood of America. The
Woman's National Cuban League issued an
appeal that was soon followed by many
, others. At this time the Journal's only part had
been to present the case of the unfortunate
girl to the American public and to transmit
to Spain the appeals of American ladies who
had interested themselves in her behalf, but
even this work of mercy roused the resent-'
ment of Captain General Weyler. Because
of what the Journal had done he caused
to be expelled from Cuba Mr. George

OF AMERICA.

43

Eugene Bryson, the Journal's correspondent,
who gave to the world the
story of the secret trial of
the young girl. The expul
sion of its correspondent did
not by any means interrupt
the efforts of the Journal.
The same day it received
the news of Bryson's ban
ishment it was able to
transmit this eloquent plea
John A. Logan to the Queen

MRS. LOGAN.
from Mrs
Regent :

Washington, Aug. 20, 1897.
Her Majesty Maria Cristina,
Queen Regent oj Spain.
In the name of Christianity I beg that
you cause Evangelina Cosio Cisneros to
be returned to her home and friends. Her
innocence, the irregularity of her trial,
the severity of her sentence of exile and
imprisonment in the Spanish penal colony
of Ceuta, in Africa, amid revolting and
unhallowed surroundings, must appeal to
your mother's heart. Her case has no_±
parallel in modern times, and can only be
compared to the atrocities inflicted upon

44 THE WQMEN
the Christians by order of Nero, whose
butchery of the innocents is even to this
day considered the most fiendish the world
ever saw ; the thought of them must be
sickening to your gentle soul.
No offence committed by all the relatives
of this young woman, still in her teens,
conform any excuse for such brutal ven
geance upon her. As I recall you, sur
rounded by your children, including the
young Sovereign of Spain, with your
sweet face uplifted in prayer in your
church in Madrid, Easter-time, i8p6, f
cannot imagine so much cruelty in your
heart as would be required to confirm such
a sentence as that meted out to iunocence
like that of Senorita Evangelina Cisneros.
On the contrary, f should expect you to
find it hard to cause a just sentence to be
carried out against a hardened criminal.
So much tenderness and religious fervor
beamed from your countenance that I shall
expect to hear that you have listened to the
prayers sent up in her behalf, and that
you have ordered her release, and that
right speedily, thereby adding another to
your many beneficent and just acts. Your
very name is synonymous with Christian-

OF AMERICA. 45
ity. You have in your keeping the ruler
of a nation, who will doubtless be guided
by you for good or ill to his subjects.
Your influence will unquestionably be
such that they will rise up en masse and
call you blessed. Such is the wish of
the women of America, who would that
peace might reign everywhere.
For God and humanity,
Yours respectfully,
MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN.
The religious sisterhoods now became in
terested and the Sister Superior of the Sisters
of Notre Dame and the Superior of the
Order of the Visitation telegraphed the Jour
nal, asking that their names be included in
the petition to the Queen Regent.
Accordingly a petition was draughted to
bear the signatures of all the American wo
men who wished to be represented in the
plea for mercy.
The names of the highest women in the
land were attached to this document.
Mrs. Julia Dent Grant, the widow of the
great general, was glad to sign her name.
Mrs. McKinley, the mother of the Presi
dent, in affixing her signature, said:

46

THE WOMEN

"I am in profound sympathy with the
movement of the American women to secure
the release of Miss Cisneros, and hope and
pray it will be successful. It is an outrage
to send a woman to that awful place simply

ami humanity, we.lhe nndei-sijaed-
American eftijeias, ajk'Vour Majefty-
T». extend your royal pr«Wfci°n'to Evan.
gelina Coss'19 Cisneros , new lying in
l«ri*"n in Havana and threatened with
a sentence of twenty yeai-J imprison.*
meut. ........,...
We ask y°u %« set this innocent young
girt free and fend Iter $? hve. among
th* women ef this United State?"..

THE PETITION.

because she is a woman true to her country,
and it is doubly outrageous to exile her
without something like a fair trial.
"The women of America can accomplish
a great deal sometimes, and I can assure
them they have my hearty endorsement and

OF AMERICA. 47
prayers for success. I hope the Queen Re
gent will listen to the voices of the Amer
ican women and her own conscience, and set
the Cuban child free." J
The daughter of another President, Mrs.
Letitia Tyler Semple, the wife of Secretary
of State Sherman, Mrs. William C. Whitney,
Mrs. John G. Carlisle, Mrs. Calvin S. Brice,
Mrs. Mark Hanna, Mrs. Francis Hodgson
Burnett and a hundred others bearing fa
mous names, were among the early signers
to the petition, which, "before the list was
closed, contained the signatures of twenty
thousand American women.
For a time it seemed as if these tireless ef
forts might result successfully.
On August 27, 1897, came the reply from
Rome that the Pope had granted what had
been asked of him. The message was as
follows :
ROME, Aug. 24,1897. — The Pope, in
fluenced by the petition cabled by the Jour
nal forfulia Ward Howe and its thou
sands of signers, will recommend to Her
Majesty Maria Cristina, the Queen-
Regent of Spain, that special clemency be
exercised toward Senorita Evangelina

48

THE WOMEN

Cosio Cisneros, the young Cuban girl
now in prison at Havana.
His Holiness has taken a very deep in
terest in the fate of the fair young Cufan
girl, and the Vatican will lose no time
in making a papal recommendation of
mercy to the Queen Regent of Spain.
This was to-day stated to the Journal
correspondent in the Vatican by Cardi
nal Rampolla, Papal
Secretary of State. Cardi
nal Rampolla said :
"His Holiness,
while disapproving oj
the Cuban insurrection,
has never Jailed to counsel
prudence and magnanim
ity by the Spanish Gov
ernment toward its sub
jects in the island.
' ' His Holiness will, ' ' continued Car
dinal Rampolla, " make a speedy recom
mendation oj mercy to He* Majesty the
Queen Regent, in behalj of Senorita
Evangelina Cisneros."

POPE LEO xm.

Mr. Hannis Taylor, the American Min
ister at Madrid, unofficially took great inter-

CUBAN REFUGEES WHO HAVE BEEN DRIVEN FROM THEIR VILLAGES.

OF AMERICA. 51
est in the case and himself presented the
appeals of Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Grant and the
rest to the Queen Regent.
Meanwhile all America had become
aroused. From every point in the Union
came messages to the Journal expressing
sympathy with the movement for the Cuban
girl's deliverance and offers of assistance.
Then Captain General Weyler was heard
from. Incensed by the movementin thegirl's
behalf, he cabled a brutal message defaming
her and denying her right to sympathy. He
even denied the facts of her trial and claimed
that no demand had been made for a twenty
years' sentence in her case. The Journal's
Cuban correspondent promptly gave the lie
to this statement.
He cabled:
' ' The papers in Miss Cisneros's case are in
the Judge-Advocate's hands, accompanied by
the Fiscal's claim of a twenty years' sentence
in Ceuta. If the Judge approves the Fiscal's
demand Weyler will surely indorse the sen
tence. That event could only be closed at
Madrid upon the prisoner's appeal to the
supreme tribuneat of war or marine.
"That tribunal confirming the decision,

52 THE WOMEN
the Queen Regent's pardon alone can save
the prisoner.
" I interviewed both the Fiscal and Judge -
Advocate before leaving Havana. The Fis
cal acknowledged that he had demanded a
twenty years' sentence, and confirmed the
Journal's statement. The case has already
passed his jurisdiction to the Judge-Advo
cate's office."
The cause of the tremendous efforts against
the girl was that her acquittal would mean the
conviction of Col. Jose Berriz, nephew of the
then Prime Minister of Spain and a favorite
adjutant of Weyler. He had the girl charged,
persecuted ber with bis evil attentions, when
her father was a prisoner in his custody as
Governor of the Isle of Pines. He had sought
to force her to submit to him by making her
father's liberty contingent on ber compliance,
and on one occasion had broken into ber room
at midnight to compel her to accede to his
wishes, and thereby got himself well beaten
by the prisoners who saved her from him.
Even the ethics of the Spanish army could
not ignore such brutality on the part of an
officer. To save Berriz from disgrace all the
machinery of the Spanish Government in

OF AMERICA. 53
Cuba was put in operation to destroy the
name and ruin the life of an innocent Cuban
girl. -1
Depuy De Lome, the Spanish Minister at
Washington, willingly aided Weyler in bis
unhallowed purpose. Going far beyond his
functions as a diplomatic representative, be
addressed letters and sent his agent to Mrs.
Davis, Mrs. Sherman and others of the
prominent women who signed the petitions
to the Queen Regent, repeating to them the
outrageous statement of Weyler, and adding
to the falsehoods of the Captain-General's
communications. As an answer to these the
Journal produced witnesses who were present
during the occurrences which preceded Miss
Cisneros's arrest and brought to these ladies
Cuban women of the highest position to tes
tify to the girl's character and qualities.
De Lome's endeavors did not alienate one
of Evangelina's friends. On the contrary it
strengthened them in their purpose to aid the
poor girl.
Meanwhile the agitation had attracted the
attention of England. Mrs. Ormiston Chant,
the great English temperance advocate, took
up the work there, and soon petitions went

54 THE WOMEN
from London with the signatures of the offi
cers of organizations representing two hun
dred thousand women, among whom were all
those most prominently identified with re
form and temperance work in Great Britain.
The petitions of the women and the inter
cession of the Pope had its effect at Madrid.
The Queen Regent, through the Duke of
Tetuan, sent a request to Weyler to remove
the girl from her awful surroundings and
place her under the control of one of the
religious sisterhoods in Havana and to ex
pedite her trial and grant ber what clemency
he could.
That was all the Journal had been working
for. It thought then its effort bad been ac
complished, but it was mistaken. The de
fense of Berriz weighed more with Weyler
than did the request of his Queen. Instead
of sending the girl to a convent he kept her
in the prison for abandoned women and made
ber confinement more rigorous by placing
her incommunicado .
Word reached America that the Spaniards
were endeavoring to get testimony on which
to convict her by bribing other Isle of Pines
prisoners with the promise of liberty. There

OP AMERICA.
was no hope for Evangelina Cisneros through
the ordinary channels.
Then it was that the Journal felt justified
in determining on her release by other
means, so it sent Karl Decker to Cuba to set
her free, and how nobly be acquitted him
self of his difficult and dangerous assign
ment the whole world knows.

Karl Decker's
Story or the Rescue

CHAPTER I.
WHAT HAD TO BE DONE.
HE forcible liberation of
Miss Cisneros was not
conceived in a moment
nor its execution decided
upon without long and se
rious deliberation. This
final plan was not taken
up, until all others had
failed. For months the
Journal had worked un
ceasingly to secure the
liberty of this unfortunate girl.
The hatred of Weyler and his determina
tion to cause Evangelina Cisneros to suffer
fully for all the humiliation she had brought
upon Berriz, through her successful effort
to defend herself against his brutal attempt
upon her honor, made hopeless any attempt
to secure her liberation through ordinary
means. The Queen Regent interested her
self in the case to the extent of writing to
Weyler to use clemency toward the girl, but

oo

HERTRESCUE

his reply was such as to cause the Queen to
discontinue her attempt in the girl's behalf.
He claimed that at the trial, which was
rapidly approaching, h e
would clearly show that
Evangelina had been guilty
of conspiracy against Col
onel Berriz, having for pur
pose the capture of that
officer and the liberation of
all the prisoners on the Isle
of Pines.
During the latter part of
August and the early part
of September Weyler freed
nearly fifty of the prisoners
who had been held captive
for fifteen months in Cabanas. Many of
these creatures, given their freedom at this
time, were set free with the deliberate under
standing that they were to perjure them
selves at the trial of Miss Cisneros and assist
the Government in finding good ground for
the conviction already decided upon.
This was the situation that was develop
ing when it was decided by the Journal to
send a special commissioner to Havana to

GENERAL WEYLER.

BY KARI, DECKER. 6l
free- Miss Cisneros by forcible means. That
Weyler would insist upon sentencing the
girl to Ceuta (the African penal colony
of Spain), was known, and that he was power
fui enough to succeed was certain. The
vital question was one of time, as it was
necessary to have me reach Havana and
finish my work before the final action of the
Spanish courts. CHAPTER II.
I REACH HER PRISON.
One morning late in August I was or
dered to drop my work at the journal's
Washington Bureau and come on to New
York at once. That evening I reported for
duty to the managing editor of the Journal
in the home office.
The managing editor promptly announced
that the Journal was preparing to under
take, single-handed, what the allied inter
ests of humanity in Europe and America
seemed hopeless of accomplishing — the re
lease of Evangelina Cisneros from a Cuban
prison. For weeks the Journal had been
fighting for her liberty with all the weapons

62 HER RESCUE
at the command of a modern newspaper.
The entire country had been aroused. The
women of every State in the Union had
aligned themselves with the Journal in its
effort to secure the release of Miss Cisneros,
and the Pope himself had personally inter
ceded with the Queen Regent of Spain.
These efforts had been of no avail.
"We have promised the women of this
country and England that this girl shall be
freed by the Journal's efforts," said the
managing editor, summing up the situation.
"So far we have been unsuccessful. We
must now resort to other means. " Turning
to me, he said: "I want you to go to
Havana, get this girl out of the Recojidas
and send her to the United States. ' '
It was not a matter to ponder over. I
was fairly familiar with the city of Havana
and the obstacles in the way, and I replied :
"If you will give me my own time to
work in, and leave me absolutely unham
pered until I succeed, I will bring Miss Cis
neros back with me."
"You shall be entirely free to use your
own discretion as to time and method.
And, furthermore, I can assure you of Mr.

KARL DECKER.

BY KARL DECKER. 65
Hearst's ample appreciation of your efforts
if you succeed. ' '
Four days later I landed in Havana. I
was fairly familiar with the city, having
stopped there twice on former occasions,
once while engaged in the attempt to join
the insurgent forces for the Journal, and,
later, while making my way back to the
United States, after having spent three
months with Gomez and the other leaders
of Las Villas.
The day I arrived I went to the Recojidas
and saw Miss Cisneros.
I found her far more beautiful even than
she had been pictured ; a cultured, refined,
young woman, whose thorough qualities
were demonstrated fully in the evidence.
She had not been tainted or contaminated
in any fashion by her loathsome imprison
ment. I talked with her for over an hour, by the
aid of a Spanish-speaking American who ac
companied me and acted as interpreter.
We sat in the gloomy, half -lighted, Sala
de Justicia, the target of a hundred eyes,
directed from behind the barred grating
which confined the prisoner to the patio of

66 HER RESCUE
the jail. Under these adverse circum
stances, however, she was as much the high
bred lady as when I saw her — many days
after — surrounded by hundreds of dress-
coated admirers at Delmonico's.
The Recojidas itself is past description.
No pen could describe the hideous squalor,
the fearful odors or the querulous cries
which came from the lean, half-clad or
wholly naked children wailing in the patio.
A stagnant gutter in the middle of the patio
held a festering mass of filth, steaming un
der the hot, white, glare of an August sun,
and accounted in some slight degree for the
horrible death-rate of the place. About the
walls of the inner court lounged and
squatted half a hundred black wretches,
their torn and tattered dresses draped about
them seemingly with no intention of con
cealing their scarred bodies. Many of these
blacks were murderesses, convicted of the
most villainous crimes, and from time to
time revolts occurred in which they tore
and wounded each other in animal-like
fashion. Among these wretches Evangelina Cis
neros had lived for more than a year.

BY KARL DECKER.

6;

CHAPTER III.
LAYING PLANS FOR THE RESCUE.
I saw Evangelina but once again before
I met her on the azotea of the Recojidas,
more than a month later.
On the Friday after I arrived in Havana
she was placed incommunicado, and it be
came possible to communicate with her only
after many weeks of constant endeavor.
My first ef
forts after
reaching Hav
ana were direct
ed toward secur
ing the assist
ance of men I
migbt depend
upon to aid me
in a most dan
gerous under
taking. Every
thing depended
upon finding
the right men,
and in this I was most fortunate. I needed
men who spoke Spanish as a native tongue
and were familiar with Havana.

RECOJIDAS PRISON.

68 HER RESCUE
During the time I was maturing my plot
to rescue Evangelina I was known to the
people of Havana as the Cuban correspond
ent of the Journal. I lodged, ate and drank
at the "Inglaterra Hotel," which lies right
in the heart of Havana, the central point of
the city, the only place where its arteries
open out into ventricles. My office was in
the Casa Nueva, the finest and most
modern building in Havana, in which is
located the American consulate. My nights
were spent with hordes of friends under the
portal of the Tacon, where at little marble-
topped tables, looking through cathedral
like arches into the pure, moon-queened
vault of heaven, we drank our cognac y
aqua de selz and talked with the longing
love of homesick Americans of the better
places in the States. No one suspected my
mission save the men selected to help me
and who I never saw except in the early
morning hours, in the little half-furnished
room I had rented in the lower part of
Havana, as a rendezvous where we might
foregather out of sight of the spies and^'de-
tectives, who devoted so much of their time
to me.

BY KARL DECKER. 69
From the 28th of August, when I reached
Cuba, until the middle of September we
worked unceasingly, without making any
progress. Then developments blossomed
into being with promising rapidity. Plans
were formed and rejected when found im
practicable, and finally, as the sum of all our
trials, we secured a knowledge of the situa
tion that made our final efforts successful.
CHAPTER IV.
No. 1 O'Farrill Street.
The Casa de Recojidas is located in the
lowest quarter of Havana, and is surrounded
by a huddle of squalid huts, occupied by
negroes and Chinamen, and reeking to
heaven by day and night. A single alley,
perhaps twenty feet in length, zigzags
around two sides of the building, opening
off in front of the main entrance.
Compostela street runs along the rear of
the building north and south, and from this
leads off westwardly Sigua street, by which
dignified name is known the alley running
along the south side of Recojidas. Turning
at right angles to the north, the alley tipsily
forgets its name and loses record on the

70

HER RESCUE

map of Havana. At the north end of the
building, and just in front of the big door of
the prison, the filthy
lane right angles again,
becomes O'Farrill
street, and strikes
straight forward, as
though anxious to leave
the jail as soon as possi
ble. It ends at Egido
street, opposite the
Havana arsenal.
This was the scene of
our operations. There
are single rows of
houses in the alley fac
ing the side and front
of the jail, and a double
row on both sides of
O'Farrill street.
A dozen times in
half as many hours I
passed through this
crooked alley trying to
find the solution of a
problem that would not be solved. Reco
jidas was apparently inaccessible ; its huge,

IN HAVANA.

BY KARL DECKER. 71
thick walls towered far in the air, topped
by a high, thick parapet. The only windows
to be seen from the alley were about thirty-
five feet from the ground, and were pro
tected by massive iron bars.
Although not known to any of us at that
time, as it was invisible from the street,
there was a window opening from the second
story on the azotea or flat roof over lower
rooms in the front of the building. Through
this window the escape of Miss Cisneros
was finally effected, but it was not until a
week after our survey that any suggestion
looking to the use of this window was made.
For the first week we scanned and re-
scanned the outer walls, suggesting a dozen
plans, all equally worthless. A daylight
attempt was considered, and plans were
made to get Miss Cisneros to the barred
door opening into a small court just off the
main entrance.
Don Jose, the warden, was to be
lured outside the door, lured further, into a
state of temporary unconsciousness, and our
end accomplished by a wild dash for liberty.
This scheme would probably have worked
but for the fact that Miss Cisneros was in-

72

HER RESCUE

comunicado, and was not permitted to re
ceive visitors, or even to come into the Sala
de Justicia on the inner side of the door.
The fact that the Havana arsenal, always
under a strong guard, stretched its long

ifSI
1 III .fill
"^¦¦•WHWSIUWIIW

NO. I O'FARRILL STREET.
front across the end of O'Farrill street on
the other side of Egido street, and that the
barracks of a company of the Orden
Publicos was located just back of Recojidas
on Compostela street, made this plan de-

BY KARL DECKER. 7
cidedly uncertain as to results. And it was
abandoned. As it appeared at this time absolutely im
possible either to get into the jail ourselves
or to get Miss Cisneros out, it was con
sidered to have become a case of untar las
manos, and a sturdy attempt wis made to
reach some of the guards or keepers with
bribes, but nothing was effected. Finally,
when it appeared as if the only possible way
to secure the escape of the beautiful Cuban
would be to dynamite a part of the build
ing, a note was smuggled in to her, as a
last resort, asking if she could make any
suggestion that could help us.
In answer she sent the following message,
in Sranish: My plan is the folloiving: To escape
to the roof with the aid of a rope,
descending by the front of the house
at a given hour and signal. For this
I require acid to destroy the bars of
the windows and opium or morphine
so as to set to sleep my companions.
The best way to use it is in sweets,
and thus I can also set to sleep the
vigilants.

74 her rescue
Three of you come and stand at the
corners. A lighted cigar will be the
signal of alarm for which I may have
to delay, and a white handkerchief
will be the agreed signal by which I
can safely descend. I will only bring
with me the necessary clothes tied
around my zvaist. This is my plan;
let me know if it is convenient .
Accompanying this ";J letter was a plan
drawn by herself showing the exact location
of the window referred to. It was at the
end of a second story apartment running
along Sigua street on the side of the prison,
but not extending clear to its front. The
azotea, or flat roof, on which it opens is
about twenty feet wide, and a high parapet
along the front of the building hid this win
dow from sight in the street.
No time was lost in acting on her sugges
tion. The idea of eating through an iron bar
with acid was dismissed and the question
then naturally presented itself as to how the
bars of the window could be cut so as to
permit her to crawl through. The height
of the building also precluded the idea of

BY KARL DECKER. 75
letting her attempt to come down by her
self. Her plan was to use the rope on the
flag-staff. Consequently it became absolutely neces
sary for us to gain access to the azotea if
we were to succeed. To do this, it became
immediately apparent, would necessitate
the use of a house in the crooked little alley
running around the jail. By the rarest
good fortune I found on my next visit to
the vicinity a vacant house immediately ad
joining the jail on the north side of O'Far
rill street.
By the end of the next day the house was
in our possession. As La Liicha, an
Havana newspaper, naively remarked:
"The lessees could find no one to become
responsible for them, so paid two months
in advance. ' '
Our gold pieces made this O'Farrill street
palace ours for two months should we care to
occupy it that long. Next day the deal was
closed. A colored Habanero was sent to
the house to whitewash, and besides the
lime and brush he carried a light ladder
about twelve feet long. The possession of
this ladder was all that brought him on the

76 HER RESCUE
scene. When he went away in the evening
he forgot it (purposely) and it remained in
the house.
On Tuesday night, October 5th, we went
into the squalid little den at No. 1, fully
prepared, as we believed, for all possible
contingencies. Having the key, I went first and reached
and entered the house without being
noticed. Two of my assistants, Her-
nandon and Mallory, followed about an hour
later, but were so unfortunate as to find the
door of No. 3, the adjoining house, standing
open with two of the occupants gaping idly at
the moon waiting for the arrival of the last of
their household. As our two men passed them
and disappeared into the house they became
very much alarmed, seeming to imagine
that the visit of the strange men to the
house next door foreboded some pending
calamity to themselves.
Although it was now half -past twelve, the
occupants of No. 3 remained awake busying
themselves at first with barricading them
selves in. Finally, however, the tardy mem
ber of that household arrived and with much
noise and clamor they went to bed.

BY KARL DECKER. 77
It was fully half -past one o'clock before the
noises of the neighborhood quieted down,
and the evil place fell into a semblance of re
pose. At this time the moon was high in the
heavens and as bright as the midday sun.
Down toward the corner of the front of the
Recojidas a large gas-lighted bracket against
the side of one of the houses made visible

V J

THE LADDER OF ESCAPE.
the smallest object in the dirty thorough
fare. Notwithstanding these disadavntages,
however, we mounted the roof and pro
ceeded to business.
CHAPTER V.
THE ATTEMPT THAT FAILED.
The front of Recojidas lay at right angles
to our house in O'Farrill street, but the pri
son building ran back of our building so

78 HER RESCUE
that the walls were together. At this point,
however, the guard wall of the Recojidas
rose sheer twenty feet above our heads. It
was protected on the top by a thick sprink
ling of broken glass bottles.
This guard wall extended out from the
front of our wall to a point ten or twelve
feet distant, where it joined the azotea. To
reach this latter point, therefore, it was
"necessary to throw the ladder diagonally
across the right angle separating our roof
from the azotea. This was the most ticklish
part of the business, as the ladder was frail
and thrillingly short.
Finally the ladder was in position and the
trip across began. No man engaged in that
enterprise will ever forget the twelve-foot
walk across that sagging decrepit ladder.
At one time it swayed from the wall. Her-
nandon was only saved from a terrible fall
by the promptness with which the two men
at the ends of the ladder acted.
As it was a large piece of the weak cornice
on which the ladder was resting, went clat
tering down into the street, waking the
warden, who came hastily to the door. By
this time the ladder had been withdrawn.

AS MR. DECKER APPEARED IN HAVANA.

BY KARL DECKER. 8l
Two men were left on the azotea of the jail,
while the third was left on the roof of the
house to handle our drawbridge and guard
our retreat.
A great gap opened in the face of the
massive building as old Don Jose looked
out into the quiet street. He stood there
for a few minutes, with an absolutely un
necessary candle in his hand staring out at
the moon and apparently greatly pleased
with the beautiful aspect of the soft Cuban
night. Then, convinced that all was safe,
he turned and passed back into Recojidas,
and thus passed unharmed through the most
dangerous moment of his life, for every
second that he remained in the street was a
second fraught with death.
Three forty-four calibre revolvers covered
him and his discovery of our position on
the roof would have called for his immedi
ate execution. Time was then allowed for
the natural quiet to drift back upon the
scene, and when finally everything had
become normal, the work of getting the
Journal's protege out of her loathsome dun
geon was begun.
We crept softly across the roof to the win-

82 HER RESCUE
dow she had indicated. As we reached it
we saw her standing before it. She was
dressed in a dark colored gown and not
easily seen in the gloom inside. She gave
one glad little cry and clasped our hands
through the bars, calling upon us to liberate
her at once. She had been standing there
for over two hours and a half, but her
patience never deserted her, and she knew
that aid was coming, as she could see us on
the roof of the house No. i O'Farrill street.
Bidding her be quiet, we set to work cut
ting through the iron bar between her and
liberty. We selected the third bar on the
left side of the window, and began cutting
it near the bottom. Our progress was slow,
and wearisome, and finally, after an hour's
work, we found that we had only cut part of
the way through. It was impossible to use
the saw quickly, as the bars were not set
firmly in the frame, and rattled and rang
like a fire alarm every time the saw passed
across the iron.
At last a stir in the room she had quitted
warned Miss Cisneros that it was best for her
to retire again ; so, leaving us, she slipped
a sheet about her and glided quickly back to

BY KARL DECKER.

»3

THE CHEST OF DRAWERS.

her bed at the far end of the dormitory.
Before going she begged us to return the
following night and com
plete our work.
We trusted to luck, hop
ing our anxious neighbors
in No. 3 would not give
the alarm, and that the cut
bar would remain undis
covered. We had no means
of knowing the next day
whether or not our attempt
of the night before had been discovered, but
proceeded on the assumption that it had not,
and so determined to carry out our plans to
the letter.
A lot of cheap second-hand furniture was
purchased in one of the outlying suburbs
and placed in our house. A huge porron
decorated the tinajero, flanked on either side
by a bottle of jenevra and a big bundle of
brevas. Our sideboard was set with plates
and other crockery, and a chest of drawers,
a folding table and a pair of canvas folding
cots had been sent in.
Wednesday was spent by each man ac
cording to his usual custom. It was steamer

84 HER RESCUE
day — a day usually filled with labor from six
o'clock in the morning until noon, when dis
patches to be wired from Key West were
smuggled aboard the S. S. Olivette. On this
day, however, I did nothing in the line of
regular newspaper work, devoting all my
time to preparing a code of ordinary sen
tences such as might be passed by the civil
censor, and, to all appearances, as innocent
as a new laid egg. These bode-messages
covered all possible contingencies that could
be foreseen.
I was stiff and sore that day, from the
climbing and clambering of the night be
fore, and from lying on the cold stone floor
of the hut in O'Farrill street. A piping
hot bath and an alcohol rub-down put me in
shape for the night's work, however, and by
dinner time I was in perfect trim.
Dinner was an embarrassment that night.
All the Americans met in the hotel and
several, who were living privately in the
city, gathered about the table before the
meal was ended. It was a matter of deep
diplomacy to escape from them. Finally,
however, I manged to get free from the
crowd and going to my room took from un-

BY KARL DECKER. 85
der my mattresses a pair of Stilson
wrenches, one of small size, the other the
largest made for ordinary use. To conceal
two heavy iron wrenches and a forty-four
calibre revolver about one's person is not by
any means an easy or simple matter, and by
the time I reached the street I felt like a
walking arsenal and hardware store com
bined. I took a cab and went at once to a little
obscure plaza away from the centre of the
town and there met the two men who were
to work 'with me. We sat in the dense
shadow of a heavy foliaged tree and talked
over our plans in whispers. Finally we
separated, each taking a different direction.
CHAPTER VI.
OVER THE LADDER.
It was nearly 8 o'clock when Hernandon
and I met before the little house in O'Farrill
street. Mallory had preceded us and had
lighted up the entire establishment. The
barred window opening on the court in front
of the jail was open, and in this Mallory
could be seen by the inquisitive neighbors,
bustling busily about, placing our scant

86

HER RESCUE

THE JAILER.

store of furniture so as to cause it to make
the finest possible show. We made no at
tempt at concealment this night, but moved
around openly and like
men desirous of happy re
lations with their neigh
bors. Hernandon even
indulged in a short chat
with Don Jose, the warden
of the jail, and proposed
a joint debauch, to which
the jailer was to be invited,
having for purpose the in
toxication of that worthy.
This proposition was rejected by Mallory
and myself as undignified, and certainly not
essential to the success of our plot.
The three little alleys running around the
jail were alive with creatures who later in
the evening gave the impression of suffer
ing severely from insomnia. Three large
dump carts were overturned in the alley
in front of the Recojidas, and on and about
these sat a number of Spaniards, negroes
and Chinese, who discussed volubly and
with many gestures the stirring topics of
the day, the recall of Weyler, the demonstra-

BY KARL DECKER. 87
tion in the Plaza de Armas, and the possible
war with the United States.
From a house to the rear of ours came
the hacking, torturing coughing of a con
sumptive already well enfolded in the arms
of death, while from within the jail wailed
out upon the sultry air the querulous cry
ing of the baby of Don Jose.
The night was still, hot and oppressive.
Early in the evening a bank of heavy clouds
gave promise of rain, but we were disap
pointed in our hopes, for by 9 o'clock the
sky had cleared and the great round, white
moon rode through the heavens in stately
solitude, the black -blue of the dome above
us unflecked by clouds. We sat and stood
for some little while in front of the house,
carefully watching for any sign that our
work of the night before had been dis
covered. Hernandon and Mallory both en
tered into conversation with such of the
neighbors as were just about us, but there
was no evidence that any alarm had been
given through our attempt of the previous
night. Finally we went into the house,
dragged our table to the window, and placing
on it some candles, opened up a poker game.

88 HER RESCUE
The scene in O'Farrill street as seen by
some chance passer-by at that moment
might be staged by a master of realism
without a single change. The foul street
in front of the jail with its chattering deni
zens, half clad, cursing the heat, lighted in
yellow patches by the bright glare of a
street lamp, bracketed to the side of a house
at the corner of the jail, the oblong window
with its iron bars and three listless, perspir
ing Americans seen just within, gambling
for matches as a foil for ennui, formed a
stage picture which could have received no
touch to make it more dramatic.
The dramatic possibilities, however, were
not noticed by those actually taking part in
the performance. The strain at this time
was terrific, but there was a tonic in the
very danger itself. Several boxes of
matches were emptied on the table, and for
a time we gambled fiercely for these little
bits of wax. Two orden publicos, lounging
along the alley, looked in upon us through
the open door, their gaudy blue and red uni
forms giving a bright touch of color to an
otherwise sombre picture.
The laws in Havana are very strict

BY KARL DECKER.

89

against gambling, and we were careful to
let no money be seen upon the table.
The police officers stood by the door,
looking curiously in for a few minutes. At
last one of them, a Gallego, from the pro
vince known as the Ireland of Spain, be
cause of the quick wit of its people, asked
us what we played, and queried us to some
extent as to the legality of our game. We
assured him we did not play for money,
but for matches.
The Gallego, however, knew -the function
of the chip in the great Amer
ican game.
"I would like to have a box
of those matches," he said, with
a grin. This remark was rightly re
garded as a jest, and we did not
answer save with a smile that
might have meant anything.
A moment later they loitered
off down the alley, their swords
clanking at their heels. We threw them a
cheerful "buenos noches," which they an
swered in friendly fashion.
Toward eleven we noticed a disposition

THE JAILER'S WIFE.

90 HER RESCUE
on the part of our neighbors to retire and
we gave them all possible encouragement.
We went out into the Callejon for a few
minutes to get a breath of fresh air. With
a dangerous enterprise a few hours ahead
and all sorts of grewsome possibilities in
sight we could not but admire the beauties
of that superb Cuban night. Across the
corner where the light from the street
lamp failed to fall, lay a broad patch of
white moonlight, softening and toning down
to a mellow picturesqueness a scene that
was by day miserably squalid and without
beauty. We closed and locked the door, barred the
heavy shutters and began to prepare for our
night's work. I have been asked how we
felt on the verge of our enterprise. I don't
know exactly, but my impression is that we
were very gay in the early part of the even
ing; that every paltry joke seemed delicious,
and that nothing was too far fetched to set
us choking with laughter.
We first took off our shoes, and then, mov
ing as softly as possible, carried up on the
roof the ladder and three-hinged boards to be
used in helping Miss Cisneros to escape. The

BY KARL DECKER. 91
tools to be used were laid in the shadow of
the parapet of the bouse, and everything was
in readiness for the venture. Then we lay
down upon the hard stone floor to pass the
hours of waiting that must elapse before the
actual work of the evening began. The
lights were extinguished, and we lay in the
semi-darkness of the little stone hut, talking
occasionally in whispers, but for the greater
part of the time silent. Hernandon, who
had not slept at all the night before, fell into
an uneasy sleep after a while. From time to
time Mallory or myself went on the roof to
take observations and report upon the condi
tion of the neighborhood.
On one of these trips I noticed the carriage
we had ordered to await us was standing di
rectly in front of the opening of O'Farrill
street, on Egido street. The driver had been
ordered to move a block away from the stand
he had held the night before, the idea being,
of course, to get him as far as possible from
the scene of our operations in order not to at
tract suspicion. Instead of moving further
toward the city, however, he stopped a block
nearer us, and within a stone's throw of the
house.

92 HER RESCUE
We swore at the driver's stupidity. I do
not think any one of us is a particularly pro
fane man, but oaths fell fast that night.
That they bad to be whispered or swallowed
did not take anything away from their force.
It was that kind of a night.
It was determined to have some one go to
the driver and to direct bim to move further
away, and this task was assigned me. I got
quickly into my shoes and slipped out of the
house. I found the carriage standing alone,
with no sign that the driver was anywhere in
call. I searched along Egido street for him
and throughout the alley, but he had disap
peared. Hernandon later went out on the
same mission, but he could not be found,
and it was learned afterward that he had tied
his horse there and bad left the carriage for
our use, while be waited to have it delivered
in another part of the city after the night's
work bad been completed.
At 1 130 o'clock we were all silent in the
front room of our little shanty. We had done
a lot of talking earlier in the evening, so
there was nothing to say, but for an hour we
had made conversation, like folks at an after
noon tea, simply because it was too dreadful

BY KARL DECKER.

93

to sit still and say nothing. I do not recall who
suggested the start, but at half past one o'clock
we found ourselves standing, and every man
was looking into the eyes of another man.
There was no need of words. Every man
knew that the uppermost thought in his fel
low's mind was :
"Suppose they have
discovered last night's
work!" Crk— k— k— k !
Hernandon was test
ing the cylinder of bis
revolver. It was like
the "All's well " cry
of the sentinels at the
forts. Mallory's revolver
and my own gave the
clicking response. If it
came to the worst, the
pistols were in order
anyhow. Still without speak-,
ing, we moved out into the patio.
" Damn the moon ! "
It is bard to say which of us said that ; we
all thought it.

THE ROAD TO LIBERTY.

94 HER RESCUE
CHAPTER VII.
THE BARS ARE BROKEN.
Then we took note of the situation. We
were apparently the only people in the world.
Over the city an enchanted spell had fallen.
A strong white light fell on the roof of the
jail and brought out with startling clearness
the window through which the girl I was sent
to rescue was to escape.
As we stood leaning across the parapet of
our bouse looking toward the azotea of the
jail, we could plainly see, tied about the bars
of the window, the white handkerchief which
had been agreed upon as a signal. The mo
ment we saw that we knew that everything
was all right within the jail; that the cut bar
had not been discovered, nor the attempt to
drug the inmates of the room in which Miss
Cisneros was confined. As the inside of the
window was in darkness, however, it was im
possible to discover from where we stood
whether Miss Cisneros was at the window or
not. That white patch on the darkness of the
window seemed to stare out of the night like
a searchlight.

BY KARL DECKER. 95
" How could they miss it ?" whispered Mal
lory. " Why, if a Spaniard saw that bandercbief,
it would take him until day after to-morrow
to realize it was worth asking about, " was the
whispered response.
Somehow we could not feel as sure of that
as we would have liked to .
We spent a few minutes in accurately sum
ming up the situation before we set to work.
At least a dozen windows commanded a view
of the roof on which we were to work, and
from one of them, the night before, had come
many mysterious noises, as though some one
within had frequently opened and closed the
heavy shutters. There was the possibility
that we had been watched and our attempt
of the night before reported to the authori
ties. We tried to ascertain if any prepara
tions had been made to trap us, but appar
ently everything was quiet.
From arsenal and barracks floated out every
ten minutes the long, wailing cry of the sen
tinels: " Sentinela alerta — a-ler-r-r-r-ta," and
then the answering call from a dozen other
sentries. Everything being in readiness for our at-

96 HER RESCUE
tempt, the ladder was quickly raised and
thrust across the parapet until it rested upon
the cornice of the jail. In a second Hernan
don, the lightest man in the party, had
crossed and was standing on the loof of the
jail, Mallory and I holding the ladder.
When Hernandon turned around with his
back to the window and leaned across the
parapet to steady the ladder for us, we held
our breaths. Just what we expected is bard
to say. Had our work of the nigbt before
been discovered it was quite possible that in
stead of the gentle little Cuban girl there
would be waiting at the window a belect
firing squad of guards. In the white moon
light we must have made conspicuous marks.
Maybe, then, we were waiting for a crash
and a flare from that window that would ef
fectually end the attempt to save Evangelina.
There was no way of finding out, and I
quickly followed on the vibrating ladder
across the gap and stood beside Hernandon
on the jail roof. Every window overlooking
that roof was like the porthole of a man-of-
war. From the point where we reached the
roof to the' window is perhaps thirty-five or

IN DRESS WORN THE NIGHT OF HER ESCAPE.

BY KARL DECKER. 99
forty feet, arid we quickly traversed this
space, passing as quietly as cats in our
stockinged feet. As we reached the window
we saw Evangelina standing just within the
window, ber face drawn and white from the
strain of suspense under which she labored.
She had seen us plainly every time we came
out upon the roof of our house, and feared
every time we disappeared that we bad given
up the project. She reached out ber hands
to us with many little, glad cries, rippling
out in whispered Spanish sentences, terms of
endearment and friendship, and calling mul
tiplied benedictions down upon our heads for
our efforts to save her.
" It's easy enough to say be still," she
murmered indignantly. ' ' You haven't been
locked up in here for a year."
It was almost impossible to keep her quiet,
and it was not until Hernandon sternly bade
her cease talking that she became silent.
We went to work quickly, and without the
slightest waste of time. We carried two
Stilson wrenches. With the smaller one I
gripped the bar below where the cut was
made and locked the handle of the wrench
behind my leg. I then gripped the upper

IOO

HER RESCUE

part of the bar with the large wrench and
swung all my weight forward upon the han
dle. The strain was more than Bessemer
steel could have stood, and I felt the bar
yield like cheese, then snap with a clear,
ringing sound that we feared must have been
heard at the palace. We dropped at once
and lay listening for a few seconds but there
was no alarm. I then
caught the bar in my hands
and pulled it towards me.
Slipping it across my knee
near the thigb, I grasped it
firmly and straightened up.
The bar came with me.
Then, stooping, I placed my
shoulder under, and, grasp
ing the crossbar above my
head, drew myself up, bend
ing the bar well up above
the opening. I then caught
it with the wrench again
and twisted it into a huge V.
Evangelina was by this time on her knees
in front of the opening I had made. While I
was bending the bar back out of the way I
bad to stop and beat her bands off mine. She

VIEW OF WINDOW, FROM
WITHIN.

BY KARL DECKER. IOI
clutched the iron and tore at it in her endeav
ors to help me in a way that would have ex
hausted her bad she continued.
The moment the bar was out of the way
she relaxed with a little moan and dropped to
the floor inside the window.
CHAPTER VIII.
OUT OF PRISON.
" Is the opening large enough ?" I asked,
in a whisper.
In response she thrust ber head between
the bars and drew her body partly after. In
a moment she saw that she could easily pass
through, and she looked up into our faces
with a smile such as the devout may wear in
sight of Paradise, but seldom is it given any
man to see such a gleam upon the face of
woman. -,
By this time the fever of hurry was in all
our veins. I quickly grasped Evangelina
about the waist and lifted ber through the
bars. In a moment she was out upon the
roof and was bursting into a joyous carol to
freedom when I clasped my hand over her
mouth, and, picking her up in my arms, car
ried her quickly across the azotea to wherej

102 HER RESCUE
the ladder lay. Here no time was lost in
leaving the jail roof. Hernandon lightly
stepped across the swaying ladder and stood
upon the parapet to receive her as she came
across. Without the slightest trace of fear, Evange
lina climbed over the parapet and down upon
the ladder. I reached far out and steadied
ber until she was started well upon ber trip
across. Then as I released ber hand she ran
quickly across, as though on solid ground,
bending slightly forward, her arms out
stretched in the effort to keep ber balance.
As she reached the parapet Hernandon
caught her in bis arms and lifted her to the
roof. "Mie zapatos!" she cried as ber feet
touched the cold tiles of the roof. " Deme
mes zapatos! "
She was not given her shoes at this time,
however. We had spent every moment in
the broad, white glare of the moonlight that
we intended to spend and felt an animal-like
desire to get into the darkness. The ladder
was drawn quickly back upon the roof and
left lying there, together with the three
hinged boards which were to have been used

BY KARL DECKER. 103
to form a platform across the ladder for Miss
Cisneros, but which were not used. Although
none of us suspected it at the time, a revol
ver, almost as large as a Spanish field-piece,
was left lying on the roof.
Our party quickly assembled in the main
room of the bouse on the floor below, and
quick preparations were made for getting
away. Within five minutes after helping Evan
gelina out of the window we were ready to
leave O'Farrill No. i. Hernandon started
first, as be was to drive the carriage.
Silently they stepped out of the house, and
Mallory and I softly closed the door .and
waited, listening. An hour seemed to elapse,
and we heard no sound ; then suddenly from
Egido street came a wild clatter and the
staccato pounding of iron against cobbles, as
the carriage dashed wildly away. We had
not lost our nerve by any means at this time,
but we were possessed of a feverish desire to
get away as quickly as possible. Leaving
the candle burning upon the tinajero and
our household goods in unseemly disarray,
we quit our bouse in O'Farrill street, never
to enter it again till Cuba shall be free.

104

HER RESCUE

When the carriage containing Evangelina
Cisneros rattled off over the cobbles of Egido
street that moonlight Thursday morning one

ON THE ROOF.

of the men (the man I have called Hernan
don) sat upon the box. Hfe was an American

BY KARL DECKER. I05
who spoke Spanish like a Castillano. He
knew every turn and twist of the narrow,
winding streets, and, taking a circuitous
course about the city, finally rounded into
the street in which was located the house
selected as the hiding-place of Miss Cisneros
while in Havana.
The street was deserted for several blocks.
Far away toward where the Recojidas lay in
all its squalor, jostling a barracks and an
arsenal, could be heard the plaintive wailing
alerta of the sentinels. In all that still
moonlit city that night that cry was the
essence of concentrated sarcasm. It rang
out from the sentry boxes as the carriage
containing Miss Cisneros dashed off; it was
heard again threading across the silence of
the city as Miss Cisneros sprang from the
carriage and disappeared through the door
behind which a trusted servant had been
waiting for hours.
There had been sounds of revelry in that
house that night. A reception had been held
there during the evening, and in the late
morning hours, as the guests left assuring
host and hostess that various houses in
Havana were at their disposition, a fright-

106 HER RESCUE
ened, trembling little maiden fluttered in
through the door and pressed flat against the
wall within waiting for some one to welcome
her or shelter ber.
CHAPTER IX.
THROUGH PERIL TO SAFETY.
As the last couple passed out of the house,
she felt a gentle touch upon ber arm and was
quickly ushered into a room set apart for her
exclusive use. In fact, a whole suite of
apartments were reserved for her, and she
was given the attendance of two servants
during the time she remained in hiding,
She entered this house on Thursday morn
ing about 3 o'clock, and remained there se
curely secreted until Saturday afternoon.
In the mean time Hernandon was having
adventures enough to fill a novel. Hardly
had Evangelina left the carriage before he
was bailed by a half drunken Spanish officer
with a companion.
Hernandon felt deeply grieved at the idea
of carrying such freight, and turned them
down harshly.
" I'm going to the palace after the Captain-
General, to take him for a moonlight drive,"

BY KARL DECKER. I07
he growled, and lashed his nag viciously.
Twice after he had an opportunity to earn
an honest peseta, but declined the chance.
Long before dawn he joined Mallory and
myself in the Plaza Cristobal, and as the
jangling little brass pots in the belfry of
the neighboring church had untangled the
hour of four the carriage bad been turned
over to the rightful driver, and, after a part
ing drink in an all night bodega nearby, we
separated for the night.
The period intervening until Saturday
afternoon will never be forgotten by the five
men who by this time were interested in
getting Miss Cisneros from the island.
A house-to-house search was being conducted
in every section of the city.
The other men engaged in the rescue were
free from espionage, as they bad not fallen
under suspicion, but from Thursday midday
I was followed by a couple of detectives who
had been assigned to shadow me by the
Havana police under orders from the Span
ish Minister at Washington . By this time it
was generally known in Washington and in
Havana that the girl bad been rescued by the
Journal, and every effort was made to detect

108 HER RESCUE.
the whereabouts of Miss Cisneros by shadow
ing me. For this reason I was unable to see
Evangelina again face to face until I met her
in New York.
On the day she left her hiding-place I suc
ceeded in shaking off my shadows by using
certain methods which would have been ridi
culed by a Pinkerton, but which were suc
cessful with the Spanish spies.
The other two men who were with me on
the night of the rescue did not join me on
that afternoon, but until Miss Cisneros
reached the wharf we were never twenty
feet apart. We did not speak to each other.
We sauntered along the principal streets of
Havana, watching and guarding. The great
est fright of the entire occasion occurred as
Miss Cisneros came out of the house in which
she had been hiding. She was dressed as a
young " Marinero," with blue shirt, flowing
tie and a large slouch hat. Her bair was
plastered under the hat with cosmetics. As
she stepped out into the street a swift swirl
of wind caught the hat and whirled it from
her head. For a moment our hearts ceased
to beat. Every man gripped his gun and
waited.

FOR CUBA LIBRE.

By Frederic Remington.

BY KARL DECKER. Ill
Quickly she caught the hat from the
ground, jabbed it down on ber head and
started off jauntily and nonchalantly down
the street.
The few careless passers-by had failed to
note the incident, and she was safely over
this hurdle.
All the way down Obispo street we fol
lowed her, guns swinging loose and ready at
hand, a carriage following, ready for emer
gencies. Had she been detected it was our
intention to rescue her again, place ber in
the waiting carriage and dash off.
Fortunately nothing happened. It was
nearly dark ; the short twilight was closing.
The Seneca had waited three hours for
freight and would wait another hour, and all
things aided.
We passed but few people and these were
Loo much occupied with other affairs to
notice us. It was the dinner hour of Havana
and those not at table were hurrying to get
there. Our greatest fear was that Evangelina's
identity would be discovered at the " Ma-
china " wharf, which is always crowded with
loitering Spanish officers. Fortunately, how-

112 HER RESCUE.
ever, as we came around from behind the
tangled swarm of carriages that blocked the
entrance, we saw that there were but few
people in sight. A little knot of passengers
had gathered on the landing stage, and were
being besieged by a crowd of watermen.
They were all late passengers going off in
the delayed Seneca.
The steamer lay far out in the harbor, a
line of heavy smoke drifting back from ber
funnels, showing her readiness to sail. Over
in Regla the lights were popping out in
bright spots, and long, wavering reflections
glanced and quivered along the waters of the
harbor from the open portholes of the wait
ing boat.
The short tropical twilight bad died away
and given place to the bright starry night.
There was suddenly a bustle of prepara
tion on the wharf. The little propellers of
the launch gave a few tentative whirls and
tbe waiting passengers hurried aboard.
Evangelina was in the crowd. We dared not
go with her, as our presence on the ship
would have attracted tbe attention of the in
spector. We sat down at one of the little marble-

BY KARL DECKER.

H3

topped tables in front of Cafe Luz, which
overlooks the
harbor, and from
there watched the
launch as it scud
ded along over
the quiet waters.
We saw it draw
alongside, and
then strained our
eyes to distin
guish the form of
Evangelina, but
could see noth
ing distinctly.
Then we waited
with our liquor
untasted before
us ; waited and
watched. We saw
the passengers
disperse as they
reached the deck
— some going to
their staterooms,
others to the dining-room. Two figures
moving about the head of the gangway

ON THE DECK.

114 HER RESCUE.
we easily identified as the two police
inspectors, but we could not see anything
clearly enough to determine whether or not
Evangelina bad made the attempt to go on
board. Suddenly we saw two inspectors turn and
enter the smoking-room on the upper deck,
accompanied by a third person, undistin-
guishable from where we were watching.
Hardly bad they left the gangway when
we saw some one approach tbe ladder and
signal the waiting boat below.
In a moment a slim dot of a figure was
seen to spring from the deck of tbe launch
to the gangway platform and run with twink
ling feet up tbe ladder.
A moment later tbe deck was clear and no
one could be seen moving about.
Then the two inspectors came out of tbe
smoking room wiping their lips.
We knew that nothing further could be
done. Evangelina was on board the Seneca and
the only danger lay in the discovery of her
hiding place.
We were all troubled, however, and felt ill
at ease as long as the uncertainty of the sit-

BY KARL DECKER.

us

uation was sustained by the presence of the
Seneca in the harbor.
I separated from my companions and went
back to my hotel alone. I found there quite
a crowd of fellow
Americans and sat
down to dinner with
them. It was now nearly
seven o'clock and the
strain was terrific.
The Seneca had
probably started, but I
could not be certain
that Evangelina was
still on board.
At this moment tbe
hotel interpreter entered with much bustle
and effusiveness.
"The Seneca is off," be said. "There
were a lot of Americans went away in ber."
' ' Was there any row of any sort before she
left? " I asked.
" No," he answered; " she got away with
out any trouble. The captain was swearing
because he was late."
As he spoke there came from the harbor

INTERIOR OF NO. I O'FARRILL
STREET.

Il6 HER RESCUE.
three long, roaring, rolling blasts; hoarse
and wheezy blasts; sounds with which we
were familiar.
The Seneca was signaling the harbor going
out. That nigbt there was revelry in Havana.
The Palacio Crystal had never held a live
lier party.
Half a dozen Americans shared in tbe
celebration of an event of which they were
profoundly ignorant.
Had they but known what cause there was
for jubilation they would not have clinked
glasses so quietly.
Later that nigbt there were American
songs beard ringing through the streets of
Havana, and we were roundly hissed when
we forced our way into a "baile" far out
into tbe suburbs.
The next morning I received a warning
that an order had been issued for my ar
rest. This coupled with an imperative order
from the Journal to return at once caused
me to leave Havana.
There was but one escape open, and I
seized upon that and came away on the

BY KARL DECKER.

117

Spanish steamer Panama, with a forged vise
on my passport.

0

J/J&

The Liee oe
Evangelina Cisneros

CHAPTER I.

TO FREE CUBA.
• HIS is the story of my life.
American women may
find it interesting. It
is at least true. I am
not used to writing, but
will tell my story as
well as I can. I will
try to make everything
plain and easy to un
derstand, although it
will be hard for any
one who has never lived in Cuba to believe
that some of the things which I must tell
could really happen so close to the free
country of America.
To begin with, I am not a girl, as all the
people who have been writing about me
always say I am. I am a woman. I am
nineteen years old. -1
I was born in Puerto Principe. Puerto
Principe is the capital of a Province of
Camiguey. It is a little city, where there

122 HER OWN STORY.
were many happy- people before the Revo
lution. Camiguey is said by Americans to
be the Kentucky of Cuba. By that, I think,
they mean that we have beautiful horses
there, and that we are proud of the prettiest
girls in Cuba. I am one of four sisters. M3'
mother died before I can remember. They
say she was a very little woman, and that
she was exceedingly pretty. She had large
eyes, and she was very slender, and she bad
the lightest foot in the dance of any girl in
Camiguey. Her name was Caridad de Cis
neros y Litorre. My father's name was
Jose Augustine Cossio y Serrano. There
were four of us children, all girls. Flor de
Maria was the eldest. She it is who has
told me so much about my mother. Then
came Carmen and then Clemencia, and then
I. We were all very happy when we lived
in Camiguey. It was always warm and
pleasant there, but sometimes the trade- wind
blows, and then it is well to stay in
doors. We girls had a little garden, and it was
our pleasure to make the flowers grow.
Flor de Maria made it her especial business
to raise the beans and the peppers and the

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 123
many things that we of Cuba like to eat.
My father had a little money, and we lived
in a pretty house with thick walls to keep
out the sun, and a court, with a fountain in
it, where all of us children learned to walk.
That is the first thing I can remember, the
fountain. It leaped and sparkled in the
sun, and I used to think it was alive and try
to catch it, and make it stand still and talk
with me. When I was in prison I often
dreamt of the fountain which danced so
gayly in the little court-yard.
My father was a good man, and he loved
his children. It was always a holiday for
us when he came home. But he was never
happy in Camiguey after my mother died.
He thought first of going one place and then
to another. He could not bear to stay in
the little home where he first took her as a
bride. So he sold it, and we went with him
from one place to another all over our beau
tiful Cuba. At last we came to Sagua La
Grande, a seaport on the north coast of the
island. There we found an old friend who
had known my mother when she was a little
girl ; Rafael Canto y Nores was his name.
He took us to his house, and his good wife

124

HER OWN STORY.

was like a mother to us. My father went
to a large sugar plantation close by and be
came weighmaster there, and for seven
years I lived with Senora Nores. She was
very good to me. By and by my father
was sent for to come to Cienfuegos. Cien
fuegos is on the south coast of Cuba, and
there is an estate there which is the largest
plantation on the island. It is called the

THE SUGAR HOUSE AT SAGUA.

Constancia estate. When he was settled at
Constancia he sent for Carmen and me.
My other sisters stayed with Signora
Nores. My father had a pretty little house near
the estate and Carmen and I kept it for him
as well as we could. Senora Nores had
taught me how to make tortillas and arroz con

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 1 25
polio and all of the good Cuban dishes. We
had a happy time there in our little house ;
for Carmen and me, and it was almost like
playing in a doll's house.
But my father was a strange man in some
ways. He would have been better pleased if
one of bis children had been a son. He often
looked at me, and took my head between his
hands and said to me, "Evangelina, when I
look at your brow it seems to me that you
should have been my son and not my daugh
ter, " and then I would laugh and put my
hands at my sides and pretend to whistle,
and my father would cover my mouth with
his hand, for in Cuba it is not good for a
young girl to behave as the boys behave, j
But for all that my father treated me more'
like a son than like a daughter. In the even
ing, when he had finished his supper, and
we sat together he would talk to me
about his business and his work at the
plantation, and he would tell me of
the things which vexed him, and of
the things which had pleased him during
the day. He talked much to me about
Cuba, and many a time I have sat with,
my father until the moon arose, and

126 HER OWN STORY.
listened to his stories of the ten-years' war
against Spain, until every drop of blood in
my veins was afire with the love of my
brave country. My father told me how he
had kissed my mother good-bye. She did
not even weep, as she stood at the window,
waving her hand to him and crying "Viva
Cuba!" while he went down the path — out
to fight for his country. Often he told me
how she used to write to him, and tell him
of his children at home, and what they did
and said, and of how she missed him and
prayed for him ; but always he said the let
ters ended with the words, "Viva Cuba!"
When he had told me these things his
voice would be a little rough sometimes,
and he would speak quick, and I knew that
he was trying hard to keep from crying;
then I always went and sat by him, and held
his hand against my face, and he told me
that I had eyes like my mother's eyes — like
hers! In all these talks with my father he did
not treat me as most Cuban fathers treat
their daughters. He spoke to me freely and
without reserve, and through bim I knew
something more of the world than most

TOBACCO PLANTATION IN PINAR DEL RIO.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

129

Cuban girls, who are brought up in the se
clusion of their homes, ever dream of know
ing. One day (it was in May, a very hot day
in 1895) Carmen
and I had pre
pared supper
and my father
came home at
his usual hour.
He did not
kiss me when
he came into the
house, and when
we were at the
table he sat a
long time with
out speaking.
I knew that
there was to be
war in Cuba.
My father had

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

told me so.

I had heard
his friends sitting in the shadow of
the house and talking to him about it.
When he did not speak to me as usual that
night I knew that something had hap
pened. I wished to ask him what it was,

I30 HER OWN STORY.
but I was afraid. All at once he pushed
away his plate, and jumped up from the
table. He caught me by the shoulders and
looked straight into my eyes.
"My little girl," he said, "I am going to
fight for Cuba. "
I put my arms round his neck and kissed
him, and then, I think, I cried a little, and
my father kissed me and did not speak.
"Father," I said, "I am going with
you," and trom that moment my father
knew that my mind was made up.
He never tried to persuade me not to go.
He told me again of my mother and of her
courage and her devotion to the cause of
Cuba, and of his young sister Soleded, who
had fought by his side in the former war.
That night we sat late and talked of many
things.
CHAPTER II.
MY FATHER IS SENTENCED TO DEATH.
After that my father's friends came
often to the house. There were fifteen, of
them, all true patriots ; all but one — he was
a Mexican. I never knew his name.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 131
He was about fifty years old, tall and very
thin. He had a nose like the beak of a bird
of prey, and his eyes were the eyes of a
hawk. I did not like him ; but my father
and his friends seemed to think him a de
voted patriot, so I said nothing. We held
our meetings in secret — sometimes at one
bouse, sometimes at another. I would take
my guitar and play or sing, and my
sister Carmen would dance, and we would
laugh and pretend to be making merry to
make the Spanish soldiers, who were always
watching us, believe that we thought of
nothing but music and laughter.
We were planning to go and join the Cuban
army on tbe twenty-second of June. My
father had arms and ammunition hidden in
different places in the neighborhood. He
left every morning at day break and re
turned at dusk. One night, when he was
coming home through the cane-fields, two
Spanish soldiers rode up to him and took
him prisoner. The Mexican was a spy, and
had betrayed the whole plan of action.
This happened on the twenty-first of
June, the very day before we were to leave
for the front.

132 HER OWN STORY.
The soldiers searched my father, and
found upon him papers which gave into
their hands the whole plot of our rising.
He begged his captors to let him go home
and tell his children what had happened ;
but they struck him with the flats of
their swords and forced him to hold his
tongue. Just after dusk a little Cuban boy ran to
the house and told me that he had seen my
father, riding out of the cane-field, between
two Spanish soldiers. I sent word to our
friends, but it was useless to talk the matter
over, for we had been betrayed and there
was nothing that we could do.
That night I did not go to bed. I walked
up and down in our little living room till
daybreak. I never knew how many hours
there were between sunset and the gray of
dawn before.
In the morning I learned that the soldiers
had taken my father to jail in Cienfuegos.
After I had made the breakfast and com
forted my sister Carmen (for she was fright
ened and cried, and said the Spanish
soldiers would kill us, and she would not
eat), I made a little dish of eggs and meat and

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 133
put it in a covered basket and walked to
Cienfuegos to see my father. They would
not let me in to see him, so I gave the
breakfast to the man who was on guard
at the prison door and asked him to give it
to my father, and tell him that I had been
there, and that I would come again, and
always again, until I could see him. The
man on guard promised me that he would
do as I asked. He was a good-natured,
shining-faced man with deep dimples, and
he laughed good-humoredly, when I turned
round at the foot of the steps, and saw him
taking the leaves off the dishes and eating
what was beneath.
After that I went back many times, and I
never said anything to the guard about the
food, but I always brought an extra
portion, one for him and one which I hoped
he would take to my father. When I had
been many times they gave me a pass into
the prison, and after that I went often to
see my father and to comfort him. One
day when I went to him he stood in his
cell looking through the bars and watching
for me. I knew by his face he had bad news
to tell — I did not think it was good news.

134

HER OWN STORY.

He put his hands through the bars and
took both of my hands in his.
"Evangelina," he said, "you are a sol
dier's daughter; now you must behave like
one; I am sentenced to be shot."
I tried very hard not to show how I felt,
it seemed to me that my heart stopped beat
ing. I talked with him a little while, and then
I went away to Santa Clara, where Captain-
General Cam
pos was per
sonally in com
mand of the
Spanish forces.
I went to the
Spanish head
quarters again
and again and
yet again. But
I never could
see the Cap
tain-General. He was always
away, or he was
was tired, or he did not care

LIEUT. CAMPOS.

busy, or he
to see me.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 135
At first the Spanish soldiers were only
sullen, but when I had been many times
they grew to think that my coming was a
joke, and they laughed at me, and told me
to have patience, and when the sun had
melted the earth away I might perhaps
have an interview with the Captain-Gen
eral. I went early in the morning and at
noon and in the evening I went ; but it was
all of no use — I could not see tbe Captain-
General, and my father was in prison under
sentence of death, and I knew that if I did
not see the Captain-General be would be
taken out and shot like a blind dog.
Many nights I could not sleep, for every
time I shut my eyes, I would start up
awake, thinking I heard a volley of rifle-shots.
One day, when I had risen at daybreak,
and had waited on the steps of the Spanish
headquarters for three hours, hoping to
catch the Captain-General as he came up the
stairs, I was very faint of a sudden, and I
sank down on the steps. One of the soldiers
began to laugh, and asked me whether my
heart was as weak as my body. He called
me a cruel and degrading name, and I
sprang to my feet in an agony of despair.

136 HER OWN STORY.
A young man was coming up the steps ; he
held out his hand to stop me, and turned
to the soldier who had laughed at me and
rebuked him severely.
"Bark when your master speaks, you
dog," he said, and then he turned to me and
asked me why I was waiting there.
I told him that my father was to be
shot, and that I wanted to see the Captain-
General. I told him how I had come there day
after day, and how I had waited and waited
until my heart was sick, and he told me that
he was the son of the Captain-General, and
that he would intercede with his father for
me. I waited in the ante-room while the
young man went in to see his father.
When he came out he told me that his
father would not see me then, but that he
himself would do his best to get my father's
case looked upon with clemency. Another
day I went to the headquarters and found
the young man standing on the steps wait
ing for me. He handed me a paper. It
was a commutation of my father's death
sentence to one of imprisonment for life in
Ceuta, Spain's penal colony in Africa. I
tried to thank the young man, but some-

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 137
thing in my throat beat so that I could not
speak, and he took my hand and kissed it,
and when he raised his head I saw that
there were tears in his eyes.
I never saw him again, but I have prayed
for him every day since that hour.
CHAPTER III.
WHAT HAPPENED IN HAVANA.
For three or four days after the young
man handed me tbe commutation papers for
my father I was at home asleep. I think I
slept twenty hours out of the twenty-four.
I knew that he would not be sent to Africa
until the war-ship left to go to the penal
settlement there. I had friends who kept
watch and who promised to tell me when it
came near the time for the warship to sail.
I was so tired with all the excitement and
anxiety, but, most of all, with the great re
lief which had come suddenly upon me, that
I could not hold up my head ; so I slept, all
day and nearly all night, and my dear sis
ter Carmen made me the good coffee and
the tortillas, and fed me as if I had been a
baby, and indeed I felt quite as weak as

138 HER OWN STORY.
one. My friends came to the house and
tried to see me, and to devise some way to
prevent my father from being sent to
Africa, but Carmen would not let them see
me. She stood at the door like a little watch
dog, and she made herself very stern and
would not listen to anything except that I
should eat and that I should sleep. She is
a good little woman, my sister Carmen.
Some day she will make someone a good
wife, and then I shall go and help her to
take care of the little ones.
I knew that my father would never live
to get to Africa. Every one in Cuba knows
about the dreadful Spanish colony there.
No man, with a heart in his breast, could
exist for one year in that hideous place.
There are fevers there and horrible sick
nesses of all sort. The most dreadful crim
inals are sent there from Spain, and the
Spanish officials of the settlement have no
more regard for the common decencies of
life, among the prisoners, than though the
men exiled there were so many starving
wolves. I knew that I must do something to keep
my father in Cuba if he were to be kep^

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 139
alive, but first, I knew, that I must sleep and
eat to get my strength, before I could even
think of anything to do.
In a few days I was able to get out of
bed. One afternoon, early in the twilight,
some friends came to see me, and told me
that there was a new Captain-General in
place of the one who had commuted my
father's sentence. They said that he was
called Genera] Weyler, and that he was a
courteous man and kindly. When I heard
that I went to Havana, and presented my
self at the palace and asked to see this Gen
eral Weyler. The guards at the palace let
me in after a moment's hesitation. I saw
General Weyler, and I told him that my
father was an old man, and that he was very
sick, and that he could not live to be taken
to Africa.
General Weyler listened to me in perfect
silence. He did not ask me one single question,
but when I bad finished he nodded once or
twice, turned to his secretary, and said:
"Give this girl an order to have her father
transferred to the Isle of Pines. ' '

140 HER OWN STORY.
I tried to thank him, but he simply
nodded and dismissed me with a wave of
his hand. I don't know whether I laughed
or cried when I was outside the palace.
This I know, I ran every step of the way to
the prison in Havana where my father was
waiting for the transport ship. When I came
in with the order my father turned white
as a ghost, and afterwards he told me he
thought I had lost my mind. I was so ex
cited and laughed so much and cried and
was so bewildered.
I went and lived with some friends of
my father (the Revira family) for twenty-
nine days, while I was in Havana. My
little sister Carmen was with me.
I shall never forget the time I spent in
Havana. It was such a strange experience,
it seems even now like one of those dreams
one has when one is between sleeping and
waking. The theaters and the concerts of
the band were going on just the same as
ever. In tbe afternoon, after the siesta, I
could go down to the plaza and see the
gay crowd of promenaders, and it was hard
to realize that just outside the gates men
were being mutilated and women and little

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

141

toddling, frightened children were being
butchered. The Havana ladies are all very
beautiful, and they dress in gay, bright
colors and soft, thin materials, which make
them look like the flowers which grow so
plentifully i n every tiny
garden there. There
were parties and riding
frolics and everywhere
one saw the American
tourists on their bicycles
going out before break
fast to see where a battle
had been fought.
The streets were full
of swaggering, leering
Spanish soldiers, but
otherwise Havana seemed
as peaceful as a convent
garden ; yet every day
or two I read in the paper which was pub
lished there, some little notice saying that
on that morning So-and-So was executed
for rebellion or disloyalty to the Spanish
Government. One morning I was awakened just at sun
rise by a sharp volley of firing. I called

WAITING.

142 HER OWN STORY.
out to one of the family, in the room next to
mine, and asked her what it meant. She
said, "Oh, it is some prisoner; they are
shooting some one at the fort."
Every few days they shot some one
at the fort. Sometimes it was a man in
the prime of life, with a wife who crept along
outside the fortress wall and prayed for
strength to bear the hearing of the shot
that killed her husband. Sometimes, and
not too seldom, it was a boy sixteen or
seventeen years old. They led them out,
blindfolded, and stood them up against
the wall, and they said they stood there
like little heroes, and never flinched when
the order was given to fire.
We heard of many heroes during those
days in Havana. Our talk was so com
monly of bloodshed and murder and pillage
and hideous outrage that it was a strange
day that brought no new story of human
agony for us to hear. At last they came
and told me that my father was going to the
Isle of Pines with about fifty other political
prisoners under an armed escort, and that
Carmen and I might go with him. That
was a happy day for us. We bade our

¦ '-. ¦' . ¦

A FORAGING EXPEDITION.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 145
friends, who had been so good to us in
Havana, good-bye, and started with light
hearts for the Isle of Pines.
CHAPTER IV.
LOVE AND PRISON BARS.
To get to the Isle of Pines you must
go across Cuba to Batabano, a seaport on
the south side of the island. I had been
there before. It is not a pretty place, like
the little towns on the sea-shore in this coun
try, but a dirty, ugly hamlet where the
sponge-fishermen stop. It is nearly all on
wharves and docks, and the sponges are
piled up there to rot in the sun, for
that is the way they get them ready for
market. There were sixty prisoners to go to the
Isle of Pines. My father was among them.
I thought my heart would break when I saw
them come out. Their arms were bound
behind them so tight that it seemed the
cords must cut into their flesh.
They were tied, thus, four abreast — like
the yoked cattle that haul the big logs in

H6

HER OWN STORY.

eastern Cuba. They marched by me, fifteen
such lines, each rank tied to the one in
front, with a guard of soldiers to shoot
down any who tried to get away. On the

TRANSPORTING PRISONERS.

sidewalks there were many people who
knew my father and the other prisoners,
but the captives dropped their eyes, so
they should not be spoken to, because it

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 147
was a dangerous thing for any Cuban to
show interest in a prisoner who is being
sent away tor rebellion. My sister Carmen
and I were allowed to go along. Carmen
was very brave ; braver than I was. I
thought my heart would break when I
saw my father pass, with the sweat-drops
brought out on his face by the agony
of those tight cords. A train was waiting
for us. It was a very odd-looking train.
Not such an one as I have traveled on
in this country. At the head, right next to
the locomotive, was something that looked
like a big square boiler. On the sides there
were long narrow holes. It was what they
call a traveling fort. The sides of this car
are all of iron and the little windows are
for the soldiers to shoot through if the
rebels attack the train. Then came third-
class passenger coaches, very small and
very dirty, and at the end was another
traveling fort.
They put the prisoners in a car, and some
soldiers got in with them. There were
soldiers on all the platforms, for the great
General Maceo was, at that time, taking all
the towns in Pinar del Rio, the western

148 HER OWN STORY.
province of Cuba, and the Spaniards did
not know where he would attack next.
Every train was guarded as ours was
guarded. Before we started a locomotive
went ahead, so that if there were dynamite
on the track, the train would not be lost.
I had been so miserable I had not eaten
anything that morning, and, as it was
a very warm day and the cars were close
and crowded, I was very wretched. The
guard in charge of the prisoners had gotten
some fruit somewhere and they were eating
it. I suppose I must have looked at it, for
the lieutenant came over to me and offered
me some bananas and sapotes. I thanked
him the more because the other soldiers bad
been the reverse of respectful to me.
"Don't you feel so bad," the lieutenant
said to me. "Nothing is going to happen
to the prisoners. To which one of them are
you related?"
I pointed out to him my father. Before
he went back he spoke very kindly to me.
"Don't fret, little girl," he said, "the
Isle of Pines is a very pleasant place,
and they will only keep your father until
the war is over. Just be brave, and I will

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 149
see that everything is done for your father
that we can do. ' '
The next time I looked at my father he
was unbound, nor did they bind him again
until we reached Batabano and my kind
lieutenant was relieved. I do not know this
officer's name, but I am sure that God will
reward him for this kindness to a lonely
girl on a sorrowful journey. Near Rincon,
which is the junction where the railroad
from Pinar del Rio comes in, the train jour
neyed very slowly. We went over a bridge
that seemed very unsteady. My friend, the
lieutenant, came back to where I was sitting
and told me not to be afraid.
"What is it?" I asked him.
' ' Some of your rebel friends, senorita, ' ' he
told me, "blew up this bridge and wrecked
the train ahead of us. It has just been re
paired, and we have got to be careful for
fear of shaking it down. ' '
I looked out of the window on the other
side of the bridge, and there was a train off
the track and half burned.
' ' Don't look that side, ' ' said the lieutenant.
I could not help looking. There were
some dead men there.

150 HER OWN STORY.
After about five hours we reached Bata
bano. It is only thirty miles from Havana,
so you can see we must have gone quite
slowly. At Batabano we were to take the
steamer Nuevo Cubano to the Isle of Pines,
but when we got there the steamer was gone.
It was Maceo again.
They were hurrying troops to fight him as
fast as ttvey could. A regiment had been
placed on board our steamer and hurried
away to the west, so for twenty-four hours
the poor prisoners and my sister and myself
had to wait on the wharf. The prisoners
were all bound again, as they had been in
Havana, and the soldiers, with their loaded
guns, stood between us and the shore, to
make sure that nobody escaped in the night.
It was not very cold, but it was very uncom
fortable. We were given food — the rations
of the soldiers who had taken our steamer.
They call it rancho. It was a kind of stew
made out of rice, sweet potatoes and a little
meat with judias, a kind of bean. Before
he went away the kind lieutenant gave one
of the guards a fresh pineapple.
"That is for the little ones," he said; then
he nodded to me and went away.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

151

As soon as he was gone the soldier peeled
the pineapple and he and another soldier
ate it.
They threw us the skin.
"Pineapples are bad for little girls, " the
soldier said, and all the other soldiers
laughed. It seemed as if that night would
never end. Whenever any of us moved

CISNEROS HOUSE IN ISLE OF PINES.
the soldiers cried out "What are you doing
there?" And we were afraid they would shoot
into the prisoners, so we kept as quiet as
we could.
The next morning the little steamer re
turned and we were marched on board
her. It is only a short trip to the Isle of
Pines, and we were not ill-treated on the

152 HER OWN STORY.
steamer. On board the steamer they per
mitted us to talk to the prisoners. My
father told me to be cheerful, that every
thing was coming out all right, and that we
would not be prisoners at all in the Isle of
Pines. At last we reaphed the little harbor, and
I saw Santa Cruz of the Pines, our future
home. It looked very beautiful, and did not
seem like a prison at all. The prisoners
were released after being taken to the
Governor's office. We walked up the main
street, from the wharf, to a long mud-house,
which used to be a hotel, before Santa Cruz
was made a penal settement. This was to
be our future home. It had been cut up
into six little houses. The first one was
a grocery store, the next a barber shop.
There was a prisoner's family living in the
next, and the fourth house was where my
father, my sister and myself were to live.
On the side was a carpenter's shop and a
doctor's office. The tenants were all exiles
like ourselves.
That was my home until July; two
months. It was like other Cuban houses,
with a tiled roof and a big piazza. Our

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 153
house consisted only of two rooms, a front
room and a bedroom which opened on
the little yard where we did our cooking.
My life, there, was very simple. I was my
father's housekeeper and that was all I had
to do, and for the rest of my time I would
sit in a rocking-chair on the piazza and
watch the people walk up and down the
road. I noticed after a few weeks one
young man, who seemed always in front of
our house. He had a black mustache, and
I thought I had never seen a finer Cuban
gentleman than he was. He kept looking
up at me, and I pretended that I could not
see him at all. When a young man in Cuba
is anxious to make a girl's acquaintance he
walks up and down in front of her house
like that.
Vender listas they call it, because the men
who peddle lottery lists walk up and down
that way. He kept smiling at me, and after
a while, when he had walked this way several
days, I went inside the house, when he came
and stood at the window.
Then he came up onto the piazza, and
asked me if we were comfortable.
The house, he explained, belonged to his

iS4

HER OWN STORY.

uncle, and he told me his name was Emilio
Betancourt, and that he also was a prisoner
on the island. After that he came up very
often and talked to me through the window-
grating. You see, I had no mother or guardian
with me or he could
have come inside.
I suppose he said to
me just what an
American gentle
man would say to
an American girl.
I only know I was
glad to hear it, and
my father consented
that we should be
engaged. Emilio
thought he might
be pardoned and
when we were free
we were to marry.
After that he came
course, and I was very

BETANCOURT.

a great deal of
proud of him.
It is all over now, because I found out
that he was not the brave Cuban patriot

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 155
thought him, but was willing to save his
own life at the price of the lives of his fel
low-soldiers and his betrothed.
Things were very peaceful with us for
quite a while. Governor Menendez was in
military command of the Isle of Pines, and
he did not molest us as long as the prisoners
obeyed the regulations. My worst days
were to come, when this Governor left us.
CHAPTER V.
THE ARRIVAL OF COL. BERRIZ.
One afternoon Emilio came to see me. He
seemed troubled and excited. I asked him
what was the matter, and he said that a new
military governor had been appointed. He
did not know very much about this new
ruler — Col. Jose Berriz. The other exiles
came in, and yet no one seemed to have any
definite information. Of course, there was a
great deal of gossip. I remember that
Emilio said that Col. Berriz had gained his
appointment through Capt. -Gen. Weyler.
He was a nephew of Gen. Azcarraga, the
Minister of War in Canovas del Castillo's
Cabinet, and, of course, he had but to ask
for a place to secure it.

156 HER OWN STORY.
This was the talk among the prisoners,
and, of course, we all feared what might
happen when this new ruler came to take
charge of us. A prisoner is so helpless — and
that is the most terrible part of it — that one
must fear everything and tremble at every
sound. The men among the exiles said that
Col. Berriz was a coward and that was the
reason he had had himself made governor of
the Isle of Pines — so he would not have to go
into battle and fight. I do not know this,
but I think he must have been a coward.
Had he not been a coward, he would not
have acted as he did. Brave men do not
attack girls, who do not carry swords and
cannot defend themselves.
I must tell you about this man, for it was
he who brought about my imprisonment.
And yet I hardly know how to tell you about
him. When I was in prison I used to try
and study out bow it had all happened — and
even to-day I do not quite understand.
The first time I saw him was one morning
when I was standing in the doorway with
Carmen, my sister. Among the political
prisoners was a Cuban, who was secre
tary to the new military governor. It was

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

157

not considered dishonorable for him to take
that position, for the prisoners must do the
best they can. This man's name was Felix
Arias Sagrera. I knew him as one of the
exiles and as one who was supposed to be
a faithful friend of Cuba.
This morning Sagrera passed our little
house; in his company was a short, ugly,
dark, little man with bushy hair and black
whiskers on his
cheeks. He looked
very much like Capt. -
Gen. Weyler.
As they passed the
house he glanced up
at me.
" Heavens," I ex
claimed to Carmen,
my sister, " what
awful green eyes. "
Sagrera came back
alone in a little while
and asked us if we
had noticed his com-

COL. BERRIZ.

pamon. "That is Berriz,"
he said. " Don't you think he is a beauty ? "

158 HER OWN STORY.
I did not answer.
" He would make a beautiful corpse, any
how," said Sagrera. " He is worse than the
other one."
Sagrera was an old acquaintance of my
father's. We had known him in the happy
time before the war, and we trusted him as
Cubans trust their friends. It did not sur
prise us to hear him talk thus bitterly, for as
far as words go he was the stanchest patriot
that ever suffered for his country. We were
unguarded in our conversation before him,
thinking we had nothing to fear from one of
ourselves. The next day Sagrera was back again.
" Evangelina, " he said, "you have made
a conquest. The governer is in love with
you already."
" He may keep his love, for all of me; the
old Green Eyes," I answered.
That same day Berriz passed the bouse on
horseback. He looked up at me and said out
loud: " There is the prettiest little rebel of
the war."
I went in doors immediately, and the Gov
ernor rode on laughing.
What happened three days later I do not

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

159

THE CISNEROS ROOMS.

like to write about, only this is the true story
of my life, and I must try and make you un
derstand what hap
pened. Then I did
not clearly under
stand, but I am glad
I carried the dagger
my father gave me,
and I think it right
for a woman to be
armed in war. Some
times she must fight
for herself as well
as for her country. I would rather have
died at once than have had my father think I
could not fight for myself and my country.
I know what my dear mother would have
done, because she would have been braver
than I was, but I thought of her and my dear
father, and did what I could. When he
caught me by the wrist —
But I forget, I have not told you what hap
pened before. I am trying to write this
history as well as I can, but at times I forget
and cannot make the facts come in the order
they should. It was so crowded and hurried
and always it seemed that we were walking

l6o HER OWN STORY.
under the shadow of death. Only father
always wanted to die with a sword in his
hand and I — because I was a woman, he
said — could only tell my beads and pray for
him and work for bim.
Soon after the Governor stopped at my
door and spoke to me.
" This is very comfortable for a prison, eh,
Evangelina ? " he said.
" Yes, Colonel Berriz," I replied politely,
for we were in his power, and I did not want
to offend him needlessly.
" I make it as easy as I can for prisoners,
and might do more, but I observe no sign of
gratitude." ' ' The prisoners are grateful for your clem
ency, Colonel Berriz."
" I hate to lock people up," he said, " but
is a Governor to be theonly one who suffers?"
"My father is calling; I must go," I said,
to end the unwelcome conversation, and hur
ried to my room.
The next day my father was arrested with
out warrant or charge, and was put in the pro
tectorado jail for exiles. This was early in the
morning. He knew nothing of what Col.
Berriz had said, because I was afraid to tell

§.'¦•

A SPANISH CAVALRYMAN.

By Frederic Remington,

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 163
him. Before noon I called at the prison. I
asked the head jailer why my father had been
taken to a cell.
" Ask the military governor," he said.
I went home, weeping all the way, for I
did not know what to do. While Carmen and
I were weeping together in our room, Sa
grera came in and called to us. This was the
Cuban who had taken the position of secre
tary to Col. Berriz. He was my father's old
friend, and I ran to him and asked him what
was to be done.
He advised me to go to Col. Berriz and
plead for my father's release.
I wanted to send word to Emilio, but there
seemed to be no time. He was not at his
house. One of the prisoners — a very old
man who had been in the Ten Years' War
with my father — said he would go to Berriz.
When he came back he would not speak to me
nor give me any knowledge of the governor's
answer. He sat down with his head in his
hands, and told me my father was dead.
Sagrera spoke up and said that my father
was not dead, but that if he were to be saved
I must see the military governor at once.
I had no hat — no mantilla. I remember I

164

HER OWN STORY.

ran bareheaded all the way. The guards let
me pass, and I was admitted to the office
where Col. Berriz sat.
Berriz received me courteously and spoke
pleasantly. " Why is my father arrested. Colonel Ber- '
riz ? " I asked, as soon
as we were face to .
face. ' ' What does it matter
why," he answered," as
long as he has such a
daughter to intercede
for him ? He is no
longer under arrest."
Berriz called an or
derly and directed him
to carry an order for my
father's release.
' ' You see I can refuse
you nothing. You will
come to me again, and
I will judge of your gratitude."
He looked at me in such a way that my
thanks almost stuck in my throat.
It almost seemed as though we were to be
happy again but when I told my father all

A SPANISH GUARD.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 165
that had happened, he said that I must al
ways carry my dagger and that it was not
hard to die, and that if I died I should see my
mother and he would come to us 'there .
For a few days we saw nothing more of
Col. Berriz. I never went out of doors, but
every morning my father had to go to the
inspection of the prisoners.
Again he was arrested; there was no
charge against him — nothing.
Sagrera came.
" Your father is to be sent to Chaferinas,"
he said, "the penal colony in Africa."
I did not know what to do ; I went away
alone for a while and then I called Carmen,
because her words seemed to make me
braver and better. So 1 kissed her and told her
she must lie down and I went out andtold Sa
grera he must send Emilio to me. He would not
go and said my father would be sent to Africa
and it would be my fault. But Carmen went
andtold Emilio — she could go because no
one, not even the rough negroes, would speak
harshly to her — no one ever spoke that way
to Carmen.
Emilo came, but there were guards with
him, and he dared not talk.

l66 HER OWN STORY.
He said, " Do not be afraid; your father
shall not go to Africa," and when he said
that the soldiers struck bim with the butts of
their muskets and drove him down the street.
He called back to me, but I could not hear
the words.
It grew dark, and then the night came,
and then —it happened.
It was the night of July 26th — I will never
forget that date. I was sitting up late Won
dering why my father did not come. He was
always home early, but here it was nearly
midnight and he was not home yet. I did
not know, of course, that Berriz had had him
arrested again; this time secretly.
The night was beautiful — so still, and calm,
and peaceful; but there was no peace in my
heart. Several times I decided to retire without
waiting for my father, but I dreaded to lie
down until he was in the house. I said my
prayers, and that quieted me, but even
prayer could not set my fears at rest.
Many times I went to the window and
looked out into the night. Such a night ! It
is not thus in the North. In Cuba every
thing is still as death. The moon is a great

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 167
piece of gold, and it makes the whole world
golden. Here the moon is silver, and at
night everything is blurred, but in Cuba all
is bright as day ; the shadows are darker,
that is all.
As I looked up the street I saw something
move out of the shadow of a wall. The moon
light touched it and glittering spots appeared
all over it. It moved nearer, and I saw it
was a man. The moonlight touched him,
and there seemed a hundred spots on him
that gleamed like fireflies. Another moment
and he was swallowed in the dark shadow of
another wall.
I realized what the skulking figure meant.
It seems to me not strange that there should
come to us a warning when misfortune
threatens. Presentiments had come to me
before. All that night I had felt there was
trpuble in store for me. How? I cannot tell,
but when you pray and tell your beads and
no answer of comfort comes to your mind
from Heaven you know in your heart that it
is woe.
When I was a little girl, a nurse told me
this was the shadow of the dark angel's wing
on your soul.

l68 HER OWN STORY.
You can believe old nurses' stories at such
times. The end of the wall, in the shadow of
which the figure had vanished, was near to
our house. Soon the man came into the
light. He was in full uniform. The glitter was
from the gold lace on his shoulders and cap,
from the stars on his collar, from the braid on
his breast, his belt and the hilt of his sword
and from his spurs.
He came upon the veranda.
It was Col. Berriz. He had put on all the
finery of a colonel, and all his military orders.
He glanced up and down the street.
He knocked at my door.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RESCUE.
Foe a moment I did not know what to do.
I knew there was an officer at the door, but
I did not know whether he had come to
arrest me or to tell me of my father. I hes
itated to lift the little wooden latch that was
the only fastening we were allowed to have
on the house-door, and this was only to keep
the door from blowing to and fro in the wind.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 169
There was another knock. I ran to open the
door, but I was too slow.
The door flew open.
Col. Berriz had broken into our house.
We stood there looking at each other. He
leaned upon his sword with one hand, and
with the other trifled with his medals or
stroked his mustache.
" You're surprised to see me," he said at
length. "You have come to tell me about my
father ? "
"That and some other matters, Evan
gelina. "
"Where is my father ? " I asked him.
" It would have been more courteous to
ask your visitor to be seated, would it not ? "
said Col. Berriz. He did not wait for my re
ply, but took a chair between me and the
door. This stopped a plan I had formed to
dash by him and run into one of the other
houses of the building.
Then he began to make love to me.
I could not answer him; indeed, I did not
speak. Presently he ceased talking of love
and began to talk of my father.
' ' You do wrong to quarrel with me, Evan-

170 HER OWN STORY.
1 gelina," he said. "You know that I have
much power, and if you really wished to
serve your father and gain his liberty you
would be kinder to me. There is nothing
that 1 would not do for you. You have it in
your power to make your father a free man .
I never threaten, but if your father should
be sent to Ceuta or to the Chaferinas you
would be to blame. You cannot expect to
have all favors and give nothing in return."
I begged him to cease molesting me, to
treat my father as any other prisoner. I
pleaded with him in the name of his mother
and his sister to spare me. I prayed to him
in God's name — then I do not know what I
said.
^~ He laughed and said :
' ' Do you think I have dressed myself as
for a princess's ball to come to a sermon by
a little Cuban rebel ?
It was then he caught me by the wrist. He
said he loved me, and tried to lift my hand
to his lips, but I released myself. Then he
became very angry, and did not say that he
loved me, but told me that it was dangerous
for me to quarrel with him.
Then for a moment he was quiet and stern,

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 171
and at last he said very softty that he loved
me better than anything in the world. I did
not know what to say to him, for I knew he
was not telling the truth, because no man
who loves any one would hurt them and
scold them. No one had ever talked to me
that way. With my father it was different,
but when Emilo and I talked together we
used to speak of Cuba, only of Cuba, and
how all the misery would be over, were Cuba
only free.
Col. Berriz was standing very close to me,
but I tried to slip past him, for I thought I
should be braver if even Carmen were with
me. He caught me by the shoulder and pushed
me against the wall so roughly that, had I
not been so frightened, I should have cried
aloud. ' ' Do you know I can make your father a
free man — with that," and he waved his
hand, "do you know that if I send him to
Ceuta or to the Chaferinas, it is your fault —
yours alone."
Then he shook me by the shoulders and all
the time kept crying out my name, over and
over again, and saying he loved me — but all
the time I was afraid he would kill me. He

172 HER OWN STORY.
acted as though he were going mad and, I
remember, I screamed and tore myself away
from him and rushed toward my own room.
I had only one thought — to escape !
When I threw open the door of my room I
screamed, for Berriz had caught me by the
arms. Then I hardly know what came to pass;
only it seemed that of a sudden men poured
in through the outer door, through the little
window of my room ; there were shouts and
oaths ; I heard Carmen crying out for me to
come to her ; I was pushed aside by the crowd
of men that swarmed out upon Berriz and,
for a moment, I knew only that I was saved.
I heard the men shouting and then I heard
Berriz praying for mercy. Among the men
was Emilio Betancourt, my betrothed. There
were many others whom I knew, friends of
my father and my friends.
I understand that they bound Col. Berriz,
and that a handkerchief was fastened over
his mouth to stifle his cries, but this I did
not see, for I was hiding in my own room.
I think it would be better to tell the story
of how I was saved in the words of one of
my rescuers. Pablo Superville was one of

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

T73

those who came first to my aid, and he has
written out for me the story of that night as
he understood it. I wish to thank him for
all he has done.
He writes :
" [ was about to go to bed in my uncle's
house, near by, when I heard a girl's cry for
help. I went
out to go to her
assistance, and
when I reached
the street I
found that the
cries, mingled
with a man's
threats, to make
the girl keep
quiet, were pro-
c e e d i n g from
Evangelina's
room. I met
two other young
men. (Emilio
Vargas, a friend
of my cousin, to whom Evangelina was be
trothed, saw one of them), who had also
rushed out in response to the cries for help.

PABLO SUPERVILLE.

174 HER OWN STORY.
' ' We went into the room and found Evan
gelina struggling against Berriz's efforts to
overpower her. We knew it was Berriz im
mediately, for the man in his inordinate con
ceit had come out in the full paraphernalia
of his military rank, perhaps hoping thus to
dazzle the young girl.
" His sword dangled by his side, and his
breast was a mass of military orders and
decorations, that, together with the gold
lacings, and straps and buttons of his uni
form, made him look as if he had adorned
himself for dress parade. He is a big, pow
erful-looking man, and the mere slip of a girl
struggling to free herself from his grasp
made my blood boil, as I needed no one to
tell me what it all meant.
" Vargas was the first in the room. He
grabbed Berriz by the shoulders and pulled
him away from the girl. Vargas almost
threw him to the floor. Berriz had hardly
time to be aware of our presence in the room.
As soon as he felt Vargas' hands on his
shoulders he let Evangelina go.
' ' We rushed upon Berriz and bore him to
the floor.
"The man was so frightened, coward that he

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 1 75
is, that he hardly made resistance. He tried
to awe us with his military rank as military
commander of the island. He ordered us
out of the house, as military commander, he
said, and if we did not go we would repent
it, he added.
" For his commands we gave him blows,
but much as we would have liked to beat him
so that he would carry the marks forever,
still there was no attempt nor intention to kill
him. Perhaps we even did not beat him as
much as he deserved.
" When we had him on the floor some one
suggested that we bind his arms and take
him to the judge, Don Enrique Gonzalez. A
piece of rope was secured and we proceeded
to carry out this idea, and tied him securely.
" Berriz offered little or no resistance.
Perhaps we did not give him a chance to
draw his sword, but I don't believe he ever
thought of his sword, so scared was he.
When he found that he could not frighten us
with his words he changed his tactics and
pleaded for mercy. If he had been a child he
could not have acted more weakly. His
words, as he begged us to spare him the hu
miliation of being turned over, with his arms

176 HER OWN STORY.
bound, to the judge of the place of which he
was the military commander, were almost
choked with sobs, and I believe there were
even tears in his eyes.
' ' Then when he found that his pleas for
mercy were of no avail he began to cry out
'Murder!' 'Help!' and the like. These
cries attracted soldiers in the neighborhood,
and eight or nine of them came rushing into
the room. They were armed and we were
not. Moreover, we recognized the futility of
trying to cope with them ; we had no weapons
of any kind, so we fled, every one of us get
ting away.
' ' I went back to my uncle's house and
quickly got into bed. In my room I heard
shots fired and cries of ' Viva Cuba Libre. '
The firing and the crying of ' Viva Cuba
Libre ' were kept up the rest of the night.
Berriz had told the soldiers to do this, for it
was the soldiers who cried ' Viva Cuba Libre,'
to create the impression that there was an
uprising. "If we had wanted to kill Berriz we could
easily have done so, for he was absolutely in
our power long enough for us to have dis
patched him with his own sword."

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 177
Meanwhile I was left alone. I had closed
the door of my bedroom as soon as I could,
and sat there trembling while the shoot
ing was going on in the rear of the
house, and the Spanish soldiers were releas
ing Berriz in the front room. They did not
come after me, and for hours I waited in ap
prehension. I had no doubt that Col. Berriz would seek
to be revenged upon me. I did not know
what to do. As far as I knew I was en
tirely unguarded, but how to get away from
the island I could not think. However, I de
termined to risk it. I thought any fate was
preferable to my being captured there. So
at about three o'clock in the morning I
slipped out of the door and went back toward
the hills. I knew of a little cabin up there
where I thought I might hide until some
thing happened or the excitement subsided .
I was about to enter this cabin when T
heard voices inside, and looking in at the
open door from the shelter of a tree I saw
some soldiers were already there. I hurried
away further back into the hills.
Daylight came and I was still alone. I has
tened to hide myself. In a little ravine the

178 HER OWN STORY.
rocks came together and formed a natural
shelter, a little cave out of which a rill of
water ran. There I hid.
I tried to drink the water, but found it was
undrinkable because of some minerals in it.
Then I realized I could not stay there. Thirst
and hunger would surely drive me out, even
if the soldiers did not find me, so I retraced
my steps, went back to Santa Cruz, entered
my own house and found my sister Carmen
half dead with anxiety about me. I was worn
out, my clothes were stained with mud from
the soil of the cave. I bathed and dressed
myself and set about getting breakfast.
Those exiles who had rushed out the back
way when the soldiers broke in my house
door had been recaptured ; I had supposed
some of them were killed in the firing ; but,
if they were, no report of their death was
ever made.
CHAPTER VII.
IN PRISON.
In the morning two soldiers came and
made me a prisoner. We were not kept
long at the Isle of Pines. I did not see Ber
riz again for many months.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

179

Once more we were marched aboard the
Nuevo Cubano. This time I was as much a

PRISON RATIONS.

prisoner as any of them. Carmen, too,
though she had not known anything about

l8o HER OWN STORY.
the events of that night, was a prisoner by
my side. We steamed out of the little bay
and to the mainland of Cuba. It was a
dreary, weary journey this time. Our treat
ment was the same as that of the other
prisoners. We had to eat the rancho that
was left after the soldiers had made their
meal. In due time we came to Batabano
and were again hurried into the cars. There
was no gentle lieutenant in command of our
guard this time to give me fresh fruit and
bid me not despair. The soldiers whenever
they spoke to us either jeered at our distress
or insulted us. As before, the train was
guarded with a traveling fort at each end,
and a pilot locomotive went ahead to make
sure that the roadway had not been blown
up. There were soldiers on every platform
to fight off the insurgents if the train was
attacked. Our only hope seemed to be that the rebels
would attack the train and deliver us from
our guards. Then we would be in Cuba
Libre, and I found myself dreaming of being
a nurse with the army of my country, and
helping make well again the poor Cuban
soldiers who had been wounded iu fighting

SPANISH INFANTRYMAN.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 183
for liberty. I think every prisoner on the
train felt as we did and hoped as we did.
But mile after mile passed by and no help
came. There was nothing to be seen from
the car windows but palms and tobacco
plantations and sugar fields, with here and
there a little stone fort with its Spanish gar
rison. At last we reached Havana. My sister and
myself were put in a carreta and taken to
Recojidas, the prison for abandoned women
in Cuba. We had lived among prisoners and
among soldiers, but we had never met the
awful creatures who were locked up in that
jail which was to be my home for fifteen
months. I knew something about the inside
of jails, but I had never heard of such a
place as this.
We were taken through a barred door and
examined in the office of the warden of the
jail. They asked me to make a statement
and questioned me about the events of the
night when Berriz came to my house. I told
them nearly all the truth, suppressing only
the names of my friends, because I did not
want to get anybody else into trouble. Then
another door was opened to us, and my sister

1 84 HER OWN STORY.
r and myself found ourselves in a great cage
with, it seemed to me, hundreds of the most
terrible women that could be dreamed of.
I had prepared myself to live in a cell
alone and to suffer the common fate of a
prisoner, but I found that even the poor
grace of privacy was not vouchsafed. My
home was to be among these women.
Carmen and I tried to find a corner where
we would be alone, but they followed us and
made fun of our terror. Presently they
pressed closer to us, and a big negress caught
me and threw me down on the floor. They
searched me and took away the few small
things I had retained, but I really had noth
ing of value, so that robbery hardly profited
them. So it was, day after day. But we
made no answer to the worst things they
could say to us, and after a while they found
they were tired of the sport of annoying us
and then we had intervals of peace.
Before this we had learned we were not
the only good women confined in that
terrible place. There were other women,
such as Senora Agramonte and Miss Aguilar,
who were political prisoners, but they, like
Carmen and myself, were in the same place

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

I85

with all these negresses and evil white
women, who had been taken from the streets
for committing robbery and murder. As soon
as Senora Agramonte learned who I was, she

THE DAILY TASK.

came to me and tried to comfort me. She
was even worse treated than I was, but her
presence there was a great comfort to me.
Had I been the only respectable woman in

186 HER OWN STORY.
that prison, Heaven only knows what would
have become of me, but her words kept ever
before me the knowledge that there was a
world outside, where everything was not evil
and brutal.
The work of the prison was done by the
prisoners, and we had to do our part. Like
the others, I had to scrub the floors and do
other menial offices, and it seemed to afford
the rest great delight to see me at the work.
I would rather be dead and in my grave,
with the cross at my head and a stone
at my feet, than to be for one day in that
place again. It was not the day that
made me wish to die. In the daytime we
huddled all together like scared sheep ; the
negresses, the women who never spoke to
me, and I. We were in a pen, like a pen for
wild animals. There were bars in front of
us, and men used to come in from the street
and take hold of the bars and lean in and
look at us. They blew the smoke of their
cigarettes in the faces of the women huddled
there, and they laughed and made jokes with
each other about us.
The negresses were kind enough to me after
a while, but they could|not^see why I turned

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 187
my back when people came in and looked at
us ; one of them took me by the shoulder one
day and pulled me around with my face to the
bars, and said, ' ' Get used to it ; you might
as well begin now," and then they all
laughed, and a ragged man held up a little
boy to look in and see, and the little boy
laughed and put his hands over his eyes to
mock me. If I had had a machete there I
would have killed that woman. Being in
prison does not make one feel like being
good. But the day I could get through somehow.
I was angry sometimes, and that helped me
to live ; but at night, when everything was
still and I was shut up in that pen, with
those awful women, something used to rise
up in my throat and choke me, and I had to
say my prayers over and over again to keep
from tearing my throat open.
I did not know whether my father was dead
or alive or what was going on outside the
little pen where I lived. One day the warden
of the prison came to my cell and showed me
an American paper. It was the Journal.
There was a picture of me in it. ' ' You have
some fine friends, " said the warden ; ' ' they

i88

HER OWN STORY.

will cry when you stand up before the soldiers
with a bandage over your eyes and the word
is given to shoot."
I could not speak. I could not even think.
At first I was ashamed. I did not know how

WARD IN THE RECOJIDAS PRISON.

my picture could be in the paper from far-off
America. So it went on for half a year. My sister
Carmen was only kept in the prison three
weeks. At the end of that time she was re
leased and I did not hear of her again until
I, too, was free. One by one my other friends
were set at liberty, but their places were
taken by other good women, who because

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 189
they were the wives or sisters of rebels were
locked up there. One side of the great room
in which we were all confined, like cattle in
a corral, had no wall except the bars. There
visitors could come and talk to us, and many
people came to stare at the women as if
they were animals in a menagerie.
One day I was told that a gentleman de
sired to see me. I went to the bars and
found there a stranger. He told me he was
a correspondent of the New York Journal ;
his name was George Eugene Bryson and
he explained to me that the paper he repre
sented had heard of my case and was en
deavoring to have me released. I did not
know just what was being done, but I found
that I was being treated with more consider
ation. Some time later two ladies called to
see me. They were the wife and daughter
of Consul-General Lee of the United States.
The visit of Mrs. Lee was like the coming
of an angel. She spoke to me as she might
to her own daughter. She promised to do
for me a number of little things, that only a
woman could do, and that night, when I said
my prayers, I prayed, too, that all happiness
might come to the beautiful American lady

190 HER OWN STORY.
Who had been so kind. Very soon after that
there came the greatest piece of good fortune
that had happened to me since my troubles
began. I was taken from that awful hall,
and with the other political prisoners was
transferred to a cell of our own in another
part of the prison. Here, at least, we could
keep clean and be spared the sights and
sounds of that assembly room, where the
dreadful women were gathered. My new
found friends took care that we should have
what comforts were permitted. We were al
lowed to cook our own food and we had books
to read. There were many women there
who could neither read nor write, and I was
able to do a service for these by attending to
their correspondence.
r Mr. Bryson came again and again, and told
me that the American women were trying to
help me. If the American women, who
have done so much for a poor, friendless girl,
could know how my heart leaped when I
found that they were my friends, I am sure it
would make them happy.
Every night, when I lay down to sleep I have
prayed for those women, and we say in Cuba
that the prayers of the unhappy are always

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 19!
answered. For a long time I was much less
miserable. I fixed a little place in my cell
where I could wash and dress myself. I made
of a box, which some one brought me, a little
table, where I kept my things. I saved all
the papers my friends brought me, and I cut
some of the pictures out and put them on the
walls of my cell.
I used to make the good coffee in the morn
ing, and if any of the women were sick I
made them a fresh cup of it, so that they
should feel better. I had a little cup,
shaped like an egg, only much thicker,
and a saucer with a crack in it. I had a
plate and a little steel knife and fork,
and I also had a tin coffee pot and a little
alcohol lamp. So you see I was quite a
housekeeper. I used to cut out the paper in little scal
lops and make a table cloth of it. One of
the women had a birthday when I was in
prison, and I made her a beautiful cup of
coffee, with two whole lumps of sugar in it.
She was so happy that the tears rolled down
her cheeks. She was a little Cuban woman,
who was arrested for concealing arms for the
Cubans. I do not know whether she was

192

HER OWN STORY.

L^

THE CHAIR.

falsely charged or not. There
are so many spies in the prison
and out that even we women did ^
not dare to say the thing we
meant to each other. That was
one of the worst things about
the whole prison. I am not over
it yet — that feeling that I am
spied upon and watched and the
people do not believe me and
that I must not believe them
when they speak to me. I often think about
that little Cuban woman now. Coming up on
the ship I thought of her. She was a strange
little thing, and she was always talking about
the trees and the flowers and the sea, and
wishing she could see them. She was not
very well, and sometimes at night she would
jump up and say she was drowning, and then
she would walk up and down the floor and cry
and say that if she could only have one breath
of the clean sea air again she would come
back to prison and die content. Her husband
was a fisherman.
There was a woman in the prison who was
not quite like other women. She used to
sing at night, under her breath, with a sort

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 1 93
of humming noise, like a great bee, buzzing
in the room. At first I liked to hear her
singing, but after a while, when I looked at
her, I saw that she was rocking to and fro,
and she had her arins folded across her
breast, as if she had something in them.
Once, when I made her a cup of coffee, she
turned away from me, and I saw her take the
cup and make as if she was feeding some
thing with it. She always laughed when I
spoke to her about it, but I believe she
thought she had a baby in her arms. She
did not have much to say to the other women
and they made a good deal of fun of her. I
don't believe she will live very long.
There was such a queer smell in the
prison. I cannot tell what it was like, but
since I have been here I have dreamed of it.
The first night I was here I dreamed of it,
and I awoke and I was trembling and crying.
I did not like any of those women at first,
and I never could bear to hear them talk;
but when I had written the letters for them
I began to feel a little different. Every one
of them had some one that she loved and
prayed for.
One day they came and told me seriously

194

HfiR OWN STORY.

that I was to be sent to Spain and put in a
convent for twenty years. They were always
telling me things ; first that I was to be sent
to Africa, then
that I was to be
led out into the
square and shot,
like a spy; then
that I was to be
imprisoned for
life in Cuba; and
when they told
me about Spain
I thought they
were telling me
the truth. The
man who told me
laughed ; always
before that he had
pretended to pity
me. I remember
that I went and
sat in the corner
of my cell and
tried to imagine how I would feel in twenty
years from now. Thirty-nine years old I
would be, and I would have white hair and

THE OLD NEGRESS.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 195
my face would be full of lines, and I would
know nothing except how to embroider and
to say my prayers and to scold.
So the time passed away. I had been in
that prison fifteen months.
No more friends came to see me, because
General Weyler was angry at what the
American newspaper had done and because
the Queen Regent of Spain had cabled him
about my case in response to the petitions of
the American ladies and had ordered me to
be placed incommunicado — that is, I was not
to be visited nor was I to receive or send
messages. But I had visitors that I did not want to
see. The Marquis of Cervrera came and
wanted me to withdraw my accusation against
Col. Berriz. He threatened me. He wanted
me to confess that Col. Berriz had come to
my room that night at my invitation.
I told him I would die in Recojidas first.
They told me Mr. Bryson had been sent
away from Cuba because of what he had
written for the Journal about me.
Then everything was dark to me and there
no longer seemed any hope. How little we
know what the future has in store for us.

196 HER OWN STORY.
CHAPTER VIII.
THROUGH THE BARS.
While all seemed so dark and helpless to
me in my prison, events were shaping to
ward my delivery. For weeks a brave,
strong man had been watching the jail, seek
ing some weak spot, trying to find some way
to rescue me.
But of this I knew nothing. I had heard
the name of him who was to be my deliverer,
because Mr. Bryson had conveyed word to
me that Mr. Karl Decker was to succeed him
as correspondent of the New York Journal in
Havana, and had bade me have every confi
dence in him, but I heard nothing of the new
correspondent after he called at the prison
and did not even know that he was still in
Cuba. And then New York seemed so far away.
I had many fantastic dreams in my prison,
but I never dreamed of liberty coming to me
from an American newspaper. I could not
understand why a citizen of your great re
public should risk danger and death to save
an unknown, helpless Cuban girl in a Span
ish jail.

evangelina cisneros.

197

But one afternoon some one slipped a letter
into my hand. I shall not tell who the "some
one" was. I have promised not to do it.
The letter asked me if I could think of any
way to escape. It said that I had friends
outside who would help me. From the mo
ment I got that letter I became perfectly
calm and self-possessed.
I was not afraid or ex
cited, or glad or sorry
any more. I just
thought and thought and
thought. My father has
a saying, ' ' Courage is
King." I kept saying
that over and over to
myself, and then I be- /^j
gan to draw a plan of
the prison and of the
window. Then I pretended to
be studying an English grarnmar I had; what
I really was doing was writing this letter that
I sent out that same afternoon :
My plan is the jollowing : To escape
by the roof with the aid of a rope,
descending by the front oj the house at

SHE RECEIVES A LETTER.

198 HER OWN STORY.
a given hour and signal. For this I
require acid to destroy the bars of the
windows and opium or morphine so as
to set to sleep my companions. The
best way to use it is in sweets, and
thus I can also set to sleep the vigi-
lants. Three of you come and stand at the
corners, a lighted cigar will be the
signal of alarm, for which I may have
to delay, and a white handkerchief
will be the agreed signal by which I
can safely descend. I will only bring
with me the necessary clothes tied
around my waist. This is my plan;
let me know if it is convenient.
I soon got my answer back from my mys
terious friends. They told me to be at the
window the next night at midnight, but they
sent me no morphine.
I had a very bad tooth and it had ached a
great deal. The doctor of the prison gave me
laudanum for my tooth. He would not give
it to me at first, but I cried and moaned and
walked up and down my cell and begged him
very hard. So he gave it to me.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

199

He said, " Be careful, little one; this laud
anum kills people."
I laughed and said, ' ' Tell me true, doc
tor, how much of this would kill a woman
like me?"
' ' Twenty drops, " he said.
So in the afternoon I made coffee, and I
dropped the laudanum in the coffee. I had
to do it very quickly for fear some of the
women would see me, but I was very care
ful, for I did not want to hurt any of them.
When the women had all gone to sleep, I
put on my dress and I stood at the window
and waited. The women in the cell all slept
soundly enough, but the woman who thought
she held a child in her arms would not lie
still. She kept turning over and taking long
breaths, as if she were going to speak. Every
time she moved
I turned cold to
my finger tips,
Once she sat up
and looked
straight at me.
I think my heart
I started to speak and she
lay down again. While I stood at the window

MISS CISNEROS' COT.
stopped beating.

2O0 HER OWN STORY.
I said my prayers, and I counted, and I did
everything I could to keep myself quiet.
At last I heard a noise. It sounded like
some one scratching on a pane of glass. I
stood quite still and watched. I saw the top
of a man's head coming up over the roof of
the house next to the prison; then I saw the
man walking on the roof. He looked like the
shadow of a man. He seemed to come
toward me with such long, quick steps,
that I felt as if he were not a real man at all,
but something I was dreaming.
He put his hand through the bars and took
hold of my hand.
' ' Don't be frightened, ' ' he said, ' ' we will
soon have you out of here."
I did not speak one word. The man be
gan to saw on the bars. The saw made a
terrible noise. I do not see how the women
in the cell could sleep through it. I wrapped
a sheet round me, so that if any of the women
in the cell woke up they would not see that I
was dressed.
All at once some one coughed. The woman
who had frightened me before sat up and be
gan to talk.
" My head aches," she said. " I feel as if

RESCUER AND RESCUED.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 203
I was choking. Who is that at the win
dow ? "
"I am at the window," I said. " I am sick
and I came to get a breath of air." The
men turned at once and ran quickly across
the roof and disappeared.
Then I went back to my bed and lay down,
and in about ten minutes, I think it could not
have been longer, I was fast asleep. I do
not see how I could sleep, but I know that I
did. In the morning, when I awoke, I was
so weak that I could scarcely lift my hand.
All that day I sat in the cell and wondered
when some one would speak about that bar
in the window. I do not see how it was
that no one noticed that it was partly sawed
through. I began to sing a little and to talk, trying
to get the women to look at me and to beep
away from the window, but one of them said
that I must have had good news to make me
talk so much-, and I did not dare to speak
again. That day was a life to me. When night
came I made coffee again, and again I put
the laudanum in the coffee. Then I lay down
in my bed and pretended to go to sleep.

204

HER OWN STORY.

When I made the coffee that night one of
the women said that she had felt sick all day
and she did not know what was the matter
with her, and she be
lieved I had bewitched
the coffee.
All the women
laughed at this, and I
laughed too. Well,
at last they went to
sleep, and then I got
up and put on my dress
and stood at the win
dow again, and counted
again, and prayed
again. The moon was
shining very bright;
oh! so big and round
and white ; there were three clouds near the
moon, and one of them was shaped like a
mountain, and I played to myself that I
would climb up that mountain, and I began
in my mind to walk up the jagged edges
of the cliffs.
It was, somehow or other, all like a dream,
and I was not at all surprised when some one
spoke my name quite in my ear. A man

LAUDANUM IN THE COFFEE.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 205
stood on the roof and was looking in at the
window. He asked me if I were ready, and
I said I was. Then he began to work on the
bars of the window. He twisted and turned
the bar with something which he had in his
hand. Click! it broke!
I was perfectly calm until that moment,
but had I not put my hand over my mouth,
I should have screamed aloud, when I saw
the bar break.
Then the man at the window put his
shoulder under one end of the bar and he
pushed with all his strength against it. I
tried to take hold of the bar and help him,
but he pushed my hand away, as if he were
very angry. At last the bar was lifted. The
man put his arms inside the window and took
me by the shoulders.
' ' Don't try to climb, " he said, "they would
hear you."
' So I hung there like a dead woman, and
the man lifted me out of the window, and I
stood on the roof, with two bearded men.
One of them took me by the hand and we
crept across the roof to the wall. There was
a ladder, running from the wall to another
roof.

206 . HER OWN STORY.
One of the men wanted to carry me across
the ladder — as if I needed that ! I was so
light I could have flown across. I ran over
the ladder as surely as if it had been solid
ground; the men crawled over slowly and
carefully, and I almost laughed at their awk
wardness. We climbed down from the roof into the
patio of a little house and then went into the
house itself.
Oh ! it was good to be free. One of the men
took me by the hand and led me quickly into
the street. There a carriage was waiting. In
a moment we were in the carriage and being
driven away — away to freedom ! I don't think
any of us spoke.
When we had ridden quite a little way the
carriage stopped and the two men took me
into a house. I do not know whose house it
was, nor even in what street it was; nor if I
did know should I tell. There was a room
ready for me and I went upstairs into the
room and went to bed. I don't think I
thanked the men who had brought me there.
I did not go to sleep all night. Once in a
while I started to fall into a little doze, but I
always found myself climbing up the sides

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 207
of the steep mountain with the round moon
staring down at me like a sick face.
In the morning some one brought me food,
but it was a whole day before I could eat. I
stayed in that house three days. On the
morning of the third day the people brought
me a suit of boy's clothes, and told me I must
put them on. I was afraid I should have to
cut my hair. I tried to smooth it down close
to my head and to put on a big slouch hat,
but it would not look nice. At last, how
ever, I got some pomade and plastered my
hair down very smooth. Then I cut some
of it off, so as to leave some short hair to show
my hat around my face.
I put on the boy's suit and I walked up and
down my room and practiced stepping like a
man. My feet looked very large in the boy's
shoes, and I could not help trying to hide
them all the time. I think I laughed a good
deal when I was practicing to look like a
man, but it is all so much like a dream to me
that I can't exactly tell. My suit was blue,
what you call serge. I wore a butterfly neck
tie and a large American slouch hat.
At 5 o'clock on the third day I left the
house to go to the steamer. My rescuers

208 HER OWN STORY.
told me to take long steps and not to look
around, and, most important of all, not to
recognize them, for they said they would be
near me all the time until I was safe on the
steamer. All the way across Havana I walked with
long steps, with a big cigar in my mouth.
Straightaway through Obisbo street I went,
the busy street of Havana, where there is
always a crowd, and the sidewalks are so
narrow that when two people meet one of
them must step down into the roadway.
Every once in a while I would catch a
glimpse out of the corner of my eye of my
friends. Mr. Decker was nearest, just half
a dozen steps behind me, on the other side
of the street, strolling along with his hands
in his pockets and his eyes everywhere ex
cept on me — just like a great boy, without a
thing in the world to think about, and further
back were the others, not one of the three
seeming to know each other or myself. So
we walked through Havana to the dock.
There I got into a small boat.
The boat went up to the Seneca. I sat and
waited. A sailor came to the edge of the steamer

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 209
and said to me in Spanish, "Follow me." I
followed him.
There were plenty of police there. The
Chief of Police stood beside the rail as I
passed. I puffed very hard on the cigar and
made a great cloud of smoke about my face.
I might have been his grandmother for all
he could see through the smoke.
An officer examined my passport. It was
for Juan Sola, aged eighteen, sailor by pro
fession. He passed it without a second
glance. I followed the sailor to a little cabin
on deck. He opened the door and told me
to go in. I went in and crawled under the
lowest berth and lay there.
They made up the berth above me, and I
lay in the dark, like a dead person in a coffin.
But O, how glad I was to be there !
CHAPTER IX.
under America's flag.
- How long I lay under the berth I do not
know. It seemed a lifetime. Now and then
I thought I heard some one coming, and
shuddered to think of what awaited me if I
were taken back. I felt a slight motion of
the boat, but it did not seem that it had

2IO HER OWN STORY.
started. Suddenly I heard the door of my
stateroom open and some one came in. I
heard the heavy step of a man moving about
the room, and knew I was being searched
for. I felt sure all was lost, but I held
my breath and pressed close to the wall.
I heard the man strike a match, and
then, I thought, now it is all over. I made
up my mind that when I was taken out on
deck I would jump overboard the first mo
ment I could.
" Evangelina," some one called.
I did not answer.
' ' Miss Cisneros, where are you ? I
am  " (he called out his name, which for
his own sake must still be kept secret).
"Where are you, Evangelina? " he repeated.
I knew it was a friend, and I crawled out
from under the berth, and when I looked in
the laughing face of my friend I began to
cry. "Weare from Havana one hour out," he
said gently, '.' and nobody can harm you now.
Come up on deck and see how you like lib
erty." I tried to think of something to say, but
how could I ? It seemed too good to be true.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

2n

I simply cried and cried. I did not go out
on deck, for I was feeling too weak.
I stayed in the stateroom until the next day,
and then, having changed the boy's clothes
for the red dress
I had worn when
I came from pris
on, left the state
room. I went up on
deck, and the pas
sengers gathered
around me, and
the ladies kissed
me and the gen
tlemen talked to
me and told me
what a brave
girl I was, and
brought me ice-
water, a chair and
a rug, and you
would have imag
ined I was the greatest woman in the world.
But I'm afraid I didn't hear much the pas
sengers said to me. I just sat and listened
to the water rushing past the ship.

DOWN THE GANGWAY.

212 HER OWN STORY.
Do you know what I thought of most on
my way to New York?
I kept continually asking myself what I
could say to the men who had saved me, that
would even faintly express my gratitude.
Every day on the steamer was an epoch in
my life. One night one of my new-found
friends pointed out what I thought was a
star. "Do you know what that is?" he said;
" that is Hatteras light."
"Then that is America," I said — I could
say no more. I am not demonstrative or
dinarily, but I need not say how much that
light meant for me. I knelt down there and
thanked God that a free country was so
near. When we sailed- up the beautiful bay to
ward New York, I could not look out, I was
so excited. Finally we stopped and a little
steamer came alongside the Seneca. There
on the deck I saw my first friend, Mr. Bry
son. All round him were others, with smiles
on their faces, and I knew from their kind
eyes that they, too, were friends, though I
had never seen them before. Then I did a
very foolish and childish thing. I rushed

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 213
into my cabin and buried my face in the pil
low of my berth and cried, and it was some
time before I was able to leave the room.
How I got on the little steamer I do not
know. The first I remember is that some
ladies were hugging me, and crying over me,
and I was hugging them, too, and crying and
laughing like a girl with hysterics. Then it
was all confusion again until I found myself
in a carriage, traveling up a street more won
derful than any of which I had ever dreamed.
I thought the street would never end. As
far as I could see it still went on between the
rows of palaces like a canon in fairyland. At
last we came to the hotel.
My new friends brought me into beautiful
rooms and told me to rest and I sat down and
closed my eyes and tried to think. Every
thing had happened so quickly. It was such
a great change that I almost feared it was a
dream and I might wake up and see the sky
through the bars of my prison again. For
some days I rested, not because I was tired,
but to please my new friends, who seemed
to think I was made of thin glass that would
break if they were not careful. Many people
came to see me. Some of them were great

214 HER OWN STORY.
men and they brought their wives and
daughters, and I never could get used to be
ing of so much consequence.
One day I was told that there was a gentle
man to see me in the parlor. I went in, and
there I saw the man whom first I had seen
through the bars of my prison window on
the roof of .Recojidas. Of course, I started
to thank him, but the words of gratitude gave
way to tears. He had come to accompany
me, he said, to a reception which was to be
held that evening. When the time came we
rode together to a large banquet room, where
I met ever so many people, most of whom,
I learned afterwards, are great and famous.
It was like a queen's reception, having so
many gentlemen of distinction, with their
wives and daughters, come to one and speak
with so much kindness and sympathy. I was
asked to make a little speech, and I did so,
but I was not able then, and the more I think
of it, the more I realize, that I shall never be
able to say what I felt. When it was too
late, though, I thought of many things I
ought to have said, and wondered if they all
thought me veiy stupid and ungrateful.
Then we went to Madison Square. Mr.

evangelina cisneros. 215
Decker and myself were escorted to the plat
form by a number of soldiers, sailors and
policemen, all in uniform. "A guard of
honor," I thought, " and for me ! " I thought
of things that had happened only a week be
fore, and wondered if there could be two per
sons with the name of Evangelina Cisneros.
The people cheered and cheered when we
came on the platform, and as I looked over
the great sea of faces, my eyes filled with
tears, and the only response I could make to
this great gathering of good people was to
wave my handkerchief. I think they under
stood, though here again I felt more than I
shall ever be able to express.
Then came the music, the beautiful patriotic
airs of free Cuba, and all the while the sky
was ablaze with fireworks. You know, when
I was not thinking how much I myself owed
to the American people, I seemed to see
through all the cheering and the music and
the brilliant lights, the real, the grand future
of Cuba. With so many friends before me,
I could wish but one thing, and that was
that the brave men at home might be present,
if but for a moment, to hear the American
people cheer.

2l6

HER OWN STORY.

After the speechmaking by the Senators
and Congressmen, Mr. Decker took me by
the hand, and we stood up and bowed while
the people cheered and cheered until I
thought they never would cease. Years and

THE NEW YORK WELCOME.

years from now, if I live, I will hear and see
those people, as distinctly as I do at the
present moment.

EVANGEMNA CISNEROS. 217
Soon after this — I think it was about a
week later — I went to Washington. I had
not thought it possible that there could be
another city in which so many people would
show as much kindness as the New Yorkers,
but in the Capital City I learned again that
the sympathy of the American people does
not end with a mere" word. There was an
other great reception to my rescuer and my
self; there was more music, more cheering
and another procession in our honor. When
I learned that this was Mr. Decker's old
home the cheering crowds had a new interest
for me ; they had known this man whose
coming had meant so much to me ; they had
known him years and years ago, I thought;
they are well able to cheer him.
The meeting in the great hall was such a
meeting as I would wish to see in Cuba.
I should like to see so many people cheering
Cuba's flag at a great gathering _ on Cuba's
own soil. It would mean that the reign of
wrong had ended. It would mean that the
Cuban patriot would not need to tremble for
his home, his wife and daughter.
I was introduced to Corporal Tanner, and
when the cheering had partly ceased he

218 HER OWN STORY.
made a speech in which he spoke frequently
of Cuba, Mr. Decker and myself. I could
not understand what he said, but I under
stood the hearts of the people about us when
they would rise up, as they did every few
minutes, and cheer at something Mr. Tanner
had said.
When Mr. Decker stood up to speak I had
a friend translate for me his words.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "I wish
to introduce Miss Cisneros. Ex-Secretary
Carlisle says Spain can have her. All I have
to say is, let Spain send and get her !"
For the first time the great cheering al
most made me timid. I bowed to the peo
ple and thought how much I would like to
say, but how little all I could say would ex
press my feelings.
I shall always remember the greatness and
goodness of the American heart, for here at
these meetings they expressed together what
had come to me first by a single act and a
single voice.
One morning I was told that I was to see
President McKinley. To me this was the
climax. •• Now," I thought, " Now I can do
something for my country. Perhaps my

AT THE RECEPTION.

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 221
great good fortune will not end with myself,
but will extend to my fellow-countrymen."
I thought over what I would say to the
President. Up to the moment of departure
I kept repeating to myself a plea for my
country: _
" I come to speak to you." I determined
to say, ' ' for the women and children of
Cuba, who are helpless. The men, they
speak for themselves in the field- -but the
women — the children — who are the victims
of murder and outrage, must look to the
great civilized Government of the United
States for protection. They ask you to see
that wholesale murder shall not any longer
be committed by the Spanish troops, and
that those who are unable to defend them
selves against barbarity shall find a defender
in the Government of the United States.
The mothers and daughters of Cuba ask you
on their knees to save them from further out
rage. One word, one stroke of your pen
means freedom and happiness for them. You
cannot, ah, you cannot forget the history of
your own country. If you recognize the
belligerency of the Cuban Republic our
fathers and brothers will no longer be called

222 HER OWN STORY.
outlaws on the land and pirates on the sea.
The women of Cuba will bless you for it.
God will bless you and your country for it."

RECEIVED EY THE PRESIDENT.
It was Mrs. John A. Logan the widow of
the great General, who was to present me.
When I was driving with her tp the White
House, she said:
"You are trembling."

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 22$
"Yes, madam," I confessed, "I tremble
more than when I helped Mr. Decker to
break through the bars of the Recojidas;
more than when I gave laudanum to my fel
low-prisoners ; more than when I crossed the
ladder that bore me to safety ; more even
than when in boy's clothes I walked through
the streets of Havana. There is more than
one life at stake."
We drove into the beautiful grounds about
the White House, and tremblingly I entered
the residence of the great governor of this
wonderful land of brave people. As we
stood in the waiting-room the door opened
and an usher called:
"The President!"
Then he came in. I looked into his kind,
gentle face, and I felt no more fear.
Mrs. Logan took my hand.
"This, Mr. President," she said, "is
Evangelina Cisneros."
I stood face to face with the President of
the United States. I, the prisoner of Reco
jidas, and I could not say a word. My poor
speech for Cuba was forgotten ; but I looked
into the kind face of the President and what
I thought I saw there made me content.

224

HER OWN STORY.
States et JLaaesies*

State of New York; !
City and Cqvnty of New York, [

•zfec^ay 0f Jfe^

DC ifRWfmberA. That on the^^/^%75t/day c
In the year^HJj'our, Lord one thousand eight jjflndred and runety/j5§&K»44rf
in the Supreme Cofyrt of the State o/2Tew Yorkfc&itrstjJ'udicial District,
(said Court being a Court ef (Record; Jiavmg common 2au> jurisdiction , a Clerk and a Seatt
Ba/
and made h« Declaration of Intention to become a Citizen of the United States of

tforda following, to wit;

'Mdd.

VM^Mi^

do declare on oath, thaj^cis bona fide my Intention to become's/Citizen of the United
States Of America, and to renounce forever, all allegiance and fidelity to sgh foreign
Prince,. Potentate, State or Sovereignty whatever, and particularly to the &&&£#& of

\J&X*\£*S-..

-of whom I am n

X arrived in the United Stateo on the: — S.*^J.  day ot.

fcesidsncc.&GuSt

Xb Attestation Whereof, and that' the foregoing is a true copy ef tht
original Declaration of Intention remaining of record in my office, !»
Henry D. JBurkov, Cleric of -the 6aid Court, have hereunto •£?
Bubscr:bo<^tji3raeynd^ixsd the seal of the said Court, tin;
day of..J

EVANGELINA CISNEROS. 225
And now lam in America.
On the fifteenth oj October, iSg-j, f made applica
tion to the courts that my name might be enrolled
as a citi2en of this great, free country, and I have
received my first papers of naturalization. There
is nothing I can say that will in any way express
the great love I have for the American flag — the
flag under which I found freedom and safety.
My father is still in prison. He has not yet been
deported to Spain. Now that General Weyler has
been removed I have not lost all hope that he may
yet be saved — if not to-day, yet in that great day
when Cuba shall be free. Of the other friends in
the I le of Pines I dare not speak. Even to mention
their names might bring trouble upon them. And
of my sister Carmen, all I dare say is that she has
been taken care of by friends of ours in Cuba. We
shall meet, little sister, when Cuba is free!
Over me is the protection of the dear American
flag. I may thank all my friends — the faithful
women of America and the brave men they sent to
rescue me. I thank them from my heart.
And now let me write the last word — VIVA
CUBA LIBRE!

JL~*~0 &~-z>j- <*3f

Cuban Mistory
The Wars tor Freedom

EVANGELINA CISNEROS.

THOMAS ESTRADA PALMA.

SHORT summary of the
more important events
in Cuban history can
hardly come amiss, even
to those who are tolera
bly familiar with the stir
ring events of the last
few years.
"The Cuban Question "
is a phrase that has been
on the tip of the tongues
of hundreds of thousands of citizens of these
United States ever since that eventful 2/j.th
of February, i8q$, when the present effort of
Cuba to throw off the misrule of Spain in the
island began.
In a general way, every well-informed per
son knows that the cause of this latest revolt
of the Cubans was the intolerable tyranny and
injustice exercised by the mother country in
the government of this rich and patient colony.^
Few, however, are in possession of the detailed
facts which history records, of the centuries-
long oppression that has been the lot of the

23O THE HISTORY
unfortunate colonists. It is for the purpose
of furnishing this information, in concise and
accurate form, that the following outline has
been prepared. The story is confined to a
recital of events, and these are of such a nature
that they are a complete answer to the query,
" What brought about the revolt now in
existence f "CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Cuba was discovered by Columbus in
1492, October 28, and recording this in his
diary, the navigator writes : "This is the
most beautiful land ever beheld X>y human
eyes." The "land" is shaped like an irregular
orescent and its greatest length is 730 miles.
Its total area is about 47,000 square miles,
or a little larger than the combined area of
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hamp
shire, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware and
Maryland. Compared with the countries of the Old
World, Cuba is three times as large as
Switzerland, more than one-third larger
than Ireland, about one-third larger than
the kingdom of Portugal, and four-fifths as

OE CUBA.

231

large as England. Its population is about 1, -
631,000, comprising white Cubans, 950,000;
colored Cubans, 500,-
000 ; and Spaniards
160,000. The coast
line of Cuba is 2,200
miles in length; and
its harbors, including
sheltered landings,
number 200. This ex
traordinary physical
configuration of the
country plays an im
portant part in its
commercial life, the
export trade of the
island amounting at
times to as much as
$83,000,000 annually.
The interior is watered
by 200 rivers and in
numerable small
streams. The largest
river is the Cauto, 150
miles in length, and
navigable by small vessels for fifty mile
of its course.

CUBAN LOOK-OUT.

232 THE HISTORY
The principal products are sugar, tobacco,
coffee, cocoa, bananas, cocoanuts, wax, cedar,
mahogany and other woods.
EARLY HISTORY.
In 151 1 an expedition was organized in
San Domingo, numbering 300 men, among
them Hernando Cortes, the future conqueror
of Mexico, and the famous Father Las Casas.
Diego Velasquez was the commander, and
his object was to subjugate the island of
Cuba, which was, at this time, a place of re
fuge for a large number of natives who had
fled from San Domingo to avoid the harsh
treatment they experienced at the hands of
the Spaniards.
Hatuey, a native chief, was one of those
emigrants, and on learning that the Span
iards had landed in Cuba he marshaled his
warriors to oppose them. The struggle,
however, was too unequal. The arrows of
the Indians, pointed with fish-bones, and
their clubs with heat-hardened ends, were
no match for the swords, cavalry, cross-bows
and fire-arms of the invaders. Hatuey was
defeated, captured and condemned to be
burnt at the stake.

SPANISH LEVIES.

OE CUBA.

235

His dying words were, "If the Spaniards
go to heaven, then let me go to hell."
Velasquez, after he had made his conquest
complete, parceled out the land to his Span
ish followers and allowed
them a certain number of
natives to till it. These
natives were "free"; but
in name only. Their
condition differed, in
no material way from
the natives,
captured i n
war, who were
frankly called
"slaves" and'
openly sold in
the market.
This was the
beginning of
slavery in the
island. There
was a third
class of na
tives. These were the men who remained
free by paying in gold a heavy annual tax
for the privilege.

A TKOCHA FORT.

236 THE HISTORY
THE RULE OF SPAIN.
Years passed and this state of affairs re
mained unchanged by the mother country,
nor was any effort made by Spain to elevate
the people of Cuba from the dense ignorance
in which they lived or to lessen their bur
dens of taxation. The world beyond their
sea-bound home was a closed book to the in
habitants of Cuba, save for the unpleasant
knowledge, brought by pirate raids, which
laid waste their fields and coast-towns, and,
on one occasion, captured and pillaged even
Havana itself. Careless of the mental and
moral welfare of the Cubans, Spain neg
lected to afford them even physical protec
tion against their foes. Moreover, if in
spite of these drawbacks, individual effort
showed intelligent results, the Spanish Gov
ernment, instead of encouraging the pro
moters, saw in success only an opportunity
for heavier taxation.
This was particularly true of the culture
of tobacco. As soon as this commodity
showed its excellence and value under the
cultivation of the Cubans, a tax was laid on
it when growing, another when manufac
tured and a third when sold ; and so exces-

OP CUBA.

237

sive were these extortions that on many oc
casions the planters destroyed their crops
rather than submit to the avarice of the
government. A NEW ERA.
The year 1762 opened a new era and pre-

SENTINELS ALONG THE TROCHA.
pared the way for many coming changes, for
in that, year Havana was captured by the
English and held by them for eleven months.
During this period the port of Havana was
open to foreign trade and for the first time
the Cubans were made aware of the advan.

238 THE HISTORY
tages to be derived from such a policy. This
epoch was the beginning of the unrest that
has ever since pervaded the island like an
atmosphere. The Spaniards finally regained possession
of the city and then there was a return to
the old system, but the change had been
worked and no amount of force or coercive
legislation could undo it.
The opening of worlds beyond their own
created a desire for education, and as Spain
had provided no adequate institutions of
learning in the colony the youths of wealthy
families were sent to the United States and
to France. In such numbers did they come
and so eager were they in pursuit of knowl
edge that Spain deemed it dangerous to her
interests, which were dependent on con
tinued ignorance, and so in 1799 a Royal
Decree was issued urging parents to dis
continue this practice, which was likely to
result in harm to them and their sons.
In 1828 the Royal Decree became more
peremptory. The practice was prohibited.
Parents who disobeyed were to be punished ;
all Cuban students in the United States
were to return to their homes, and those who

OF CUBA. *39
had already returned, after completing their
education , were to be kept under the eye of
the police and their utterances and conduct
carefully noted and reported.
The attitude of Spain in this matter may
be taken as typical of her treatment of this
colony in all the relations she has sustained
towards it. The result has been that since
the beginning of this century history records
an almost uninterrupted series of uprisings
and revolts, of which the present is the latest
and most desperately fought.
THE EARLY REBELLIONS.
The earliest rebellion of the century was
in 1823. It had its origin, as our own revo
lution did, in the resistance to taxation
without representation, and it was brought
about in this way :
Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 and the
King of Spain and the royal family were
taken to France and detained as prisoners of
war. During the absence of the King a
national Junta (committee) was formed to
defend the country. In 18 10 a decree was
issued by this Junta concerning the National
Cortes (Parliament), and by the decree the

240

THE HISTORY

inhabitants of the Spanish colonies of
America were not only authorized to elect
deputies to represent them, but they were
directed so to do. Acting in accordance with
this mandate, Cuba sent
two deputies. In 1812
a con stitution was
adopted by the National
Cortes, thus assembled
and composed, and the
first article contained
the declaration that:
Inasmuch as the Span
ish nation is composed
of all the Spaniards of
both hemispheres, there
fore inhabitants of all
Spanish colonies are en
titled to representation
in the Cortes of Spain .
Two years later Fer
dinand VII. became
monarch and he abol
ished this constitution
and the rights it gave. Then followed a
struggle of six years, at the end of which the
constitutional party triumphed and Cuba

A SPANISH SOLDIER.

OF CUBA. 241
was allowed representation, this time by four
deputies instead of two. In 1823, however,
the constitution was again set aside by the
King, and Cuba, wearied with such trifling
with her rights, rose in revolt. The in
famous decree investing the Governor of
Cuba (Captain-General) with the despotic
powers which are described further on was
issued by Ferdinand in 1825, and this was
followed by an uprising in 1826 and another
in 1828, when the tyrannical edict against
education aggravated the other and more
serious questions. In 1830 there was still
another attempt to regain the rights granted
under the constitution. SPECIAL LAWS.
In 1833 Ferdinand died. This event
was seized upon as the opportunity for
framing a new and different constitution,
which was adopted, but abandoned three
years later for the original draft of 181 2.
By the provisions of this document Cuba
was entitled to four deputies. Accordingly
in the beginning of 1837 Cuba's representa
tives arrived at Madrid, but their certificates,
upon presentation, were refused. A protest
followed and the matter was referred to a

242 THE HISTORY
committee, which reported that it had care
fully considered the matter and recom
mended that "in future the American and
Asiatic provinces be governed by special
laws and that their deputies be not admitted
to the Cortes." This report was adopted
and acted upon and Cuba was left without
representation. The reason for this arbitrary action was
not hard to discover. Cuba was peopled at
this time by two classes of whites — Cubans
and resident Spaniards. The Government,
having an eye to valuable monopolies, which
it shared with individuals of Spanish birth,
guarded jealously the interests of the
Spaniards, thus insuring their allegiance,
and on the other hand it degraded the white
Cubans to the position of a conquered
people. It was, in other words, detrimental
to monopolistic enterprises, both govern
mental and private, to have Cuban represen
tation in the Cortes, and therefore the
deputies were excluded. Moreover, Gen.
Tacon was then Captain-General of the isl
and and his reports to Spain urged upon
the people there the absolute necessity of
military rule in Cuba and repeatedly de-

OF CUBA.

243

clared that under no other form of govern
ment could the country be saved for Spain
and for the governmental monopolists.
Cuba was at this time paying vast tribute
to Spain and it was sorely needed. Indeed
the Minister of Finance, in a speech to the

A TYPICAL SPANISH FORT.

Cortes on the subject of the exclusion of the
Cuban deputies, openly warned the members
not to change the prevailing conditions and
so "endanger the considerable contribu
tions" with which the "wants of the mother
country were relieved. ' '

244 THE HISTORY
THE ROYAL DECREE.
With no representation in the national
council of the nation of which it had been
assured it formed a part,how did Spain pro
pose to govern Cuba? And had the Cubans
any real cause to complain of the lack of
representatives ?
The answer to these questions is to be
found in the Royal Decree dated March 28,
1825. This old law, still in force, still un
changed, has been one of the most potent
factors in bringing on the present war.
This decree confers upon the ruler of Cuba
(the Captain-General) explicitly and in
these words "all the powers which by the
royal ordinances are granted to the gov
ernors of besieged cities."
Now, be it understood, no such despotic
power as that vested in the Captain-General
of Cuba is held by any potentate on earth
except the monarchs of Eastern despotisms.
By its provisions the Captain-General is
superior to the sovereign himself ; he may
disregard or set aside any law made by the
King. By the will of the Captain-General
and at his command persons have been im
prisoned without trial, banished, deported to

AN INSURGENT BATTERY READY FOR ACTION.

OF CUBA.

247

penal colonies, their
estates confiscated
and their families
reduced to] destitu
tion. In this gross des
potism lies the ex
planation of the re
volts of 1848, 1850,
1851, 1855 and the
ten years' war of
1868-78 and indi
rectly of the present
rebellion. Three years prior
to the ten years' war the indications of com
ing trouble in Cuba were so unmistakable
that Spain directed an election at which six
teen commissioners were to be chosen to pre
sent the case of Cuba to the home Govern
ment and to suggest reforms. The commis
sion was elected and made its report, but its
recommendations were completely ignored,
and by way of answer, taxes were increased
and the collections enforced with unusual
severity. It was a gage of battle. The Cubans did

248

THE HISTORY

not hesitate. Armies
sprang up all over the
island. For ten years the con
test raged and its cost
to Cuba was 45,000 lives
and $1,000,000,000 (one
billion) in money.
Spain sacrificed over
200,000 lives, but laid
the expenses of the war
on Cuba. In the course
of this conflict 13,000
MACEO. , , _
estates were confis
cated, many of them belonging to helpless
women, whose only crime consisted in the
fact that they were related to or sympathized
with the insurgents.
In five years 2,927 political prisoners were
executed by" the Spaniards. In a period of
less than four years 4,762 persons were cap
tured by the Spanish and have never been
heard of since. What became of them ?
Dare Spain answer?
The struggle was brought to a close by
General Martinez Campos, who assured the
Cubans that Spain would grant to them self-

OF CUBA.

249

government and allow them to send deputies
to the Cortes. The electoral law, however,
was so framed that at no time have they
been able to send more than six and some
times only three representatives to Madrid,
where the Cortes is composed of 430 mem
bers — not one against sixty !
THE PRESENT WAR.
Of course with such a majority against
them little could be done to obtain any rea
sonable scheme of government for Cuba, but

-{¦A'l"

yjb

WHERE MACEO FELL.

finally after sixteen years of ceaseless agita
tion of the question a proposition was sub
mitted by Minister Abarzuza and approved

250 THE> HISTORY
by the Spanish Government. These were
its provisions, and it was in revolt against
their manifest injustice that the present war
was begun.
There was to be a Council of Administra
tion, composed of thirty members — fifteen
elected by the people and fifteen chosen by
the Government. The Captain-General was
President, and in addition to the veto he
was invested with authority to suspend any
number of members of the Council, " not
exceeding a majority," and for " any length
of time. ' '
Now by the peculiar conditions of the
electoral law laid down for Cuba, the Cubans,
who number more than 1,400,000, would
have had two representatives, and the Span
ish residents, who number only 160,000,
would have had the other twenty-eight.
But even with this generous working ma
jority and the veto and suspension powers
of the Captain-General, Spain reserved to
herself the right to declare all legislation
ineffective unless approved by the Cortes.
This was the "self-government" offered
to Cuba.
The crowning insult and unbearable op-

OF CUBA.

251

pression lay in the manner in which this
"self-government" was to lure Cuba into a
trap in which she would have to sacrifice
$300,000,000, or apparently besmirch her na
tional honor.

THE TROCHA NEAR ARTEMISE.

Spain had in Europe $200,000,000 of bonds
called "Cuban" because (although part of
her national debt) the interest on them is
paid by the revenues of Cuba.
A loan of $300,000,000 was contemplated
by Spain to redeem these bonds and leave
enough to put a little cash into a very empty
treasury. Now the proposition was to sub-

252 THE HISTORY
mit this plan to the Cuban Council of Ad
ministration for approval. This it will be
seen was not difficult to obtain by reason of
the curious regulations governing that body.
And when this result was reached, if Cuba
ever became independent, she would be re
sponsible for this tremendous debt foisted
upon her by political juggling.
This state of affairs confronted the Cubans
when they began the present war.
It is not within the purpose of this article
to describe the confused events of the last
two years of Cuba. There has been con
tinuous fighting and the insurgents, as they
are called, have won many difficult battles.
Spain has used against them the usual
weapons of tyranny — confiscation, starva
tion, the hangman's rope, the bribe, torture
of women and children. And still the
patriots fight on — poorly equipped, poorly
fed, they have held their own against the
best Spanish troops.
They are led by many of the veterans of
the famous Ten Years' War. The old, gray
hero Gomez is in command of the field
forces — a scattered army of 30,000 men, in
cluding the 2,000 veteran insurgents in the

OF CUBA 253
province of Pinar del Rio. Maceo, that
brave mulatto — as fine a general as the great
Toussaint, who fought the Spaniards a hun
dred years earlier— was treacherously slain
in a skirmish.
But the end is not yet.
The Cuban patriots have been offered a
mockery of "Home Rule" — in place of
liberty; they have refused. They have
demanded absolute freedom from the Span
ish yoke ; and in the open field they back
their demand with the unanswerable logic
of war. They have friends in this county.
The Cuban Junta, of which Thomas Estrada
Palma is chief, has done much to furnish
the sinews of the war. The sympathy of
every liberty-loving American is with those
brave and desperate patriots who are fight
ing — not hopelessly — for Cuba Libre.
And the end is not yet.

CHRONOLOGY OF CUBAN EVENTS.
Discovered by Columbus  1492
Conquered by Diego Velasquez (Spaniard). ..1511-12
Havana Settled by the Spanish  1519
" Laws of the Indies" (Thirty- nine Ordinances
for the Government of the Spanish Colonies)
signed by Charles 1  1542
Morro Castle, built by Don Juan de Tefeda,
First Captain-General (about)  1590
English Make a Settlement  1741
Havana Taken by the English and Held Eleven
Months  1762
First Anti-Educational Decree  1 799
Decree of Spanish Junta Authorizing Cuban
Deputies in National Cortes  1810
Constitution Adopted Recognizing Right of
Spanish Colonies to Representation in Na
tional Cortes  1812
Ferdinand VII. Crowned and Constitution of
1812 Annulled by His Decree  1814
Cuba Opened to the Trade of the World  1818
Constitution of 1812 Re-adopted by Ferdinand
VII  1820
Constitution of 1812 Abolished for Second Time
by Ferdinand and First Cuban Revolt  1823
Decree Bestowing Absolute Authority on Cap
tain-General  1825

256 CHRONOLOGY OF
Second Cuban Revolt  1826
Prohibitory Educational Decree and Third
(Black Eagle) Cuban Revolt  1828
Fourth (Soles de Bolivar) Cuban Revolt  1830
Death of Ferdinand VII. and Adoption of a
New Constitution  1833
New Constitution Abolished and Constitution
of 1812 Revived  1836
Cuban Delegates, Legally Elected, Refused
Admission to the National Cortes  1837
"Lone Star" Society Formed  1848
Fifth Cuban Revolt, Led by Narciso Lopez. . . . 1848
Sixth " " " " "  1850
Seventh " " " " "  1851
Death of General Lopez  1851
Eighth Cuban Revolt  1855
Cuban Commissioners, Sixteen in Number, Di
rected to Report to Home Government on
Condition of the Island  1865
Report of Commissioners Made  i860
Report of Commissioners Ignored and Taxes
Increased by Spain  ,  1867
Beginning of the Ten Years' War  1868
United States Government Decides Not to Rec
ognize the Cubans as Belligerents  1870
Rascones Defeats the Marquis Santa Lucia. . . . 1874
A Cuban League Formed in the United States. 1877
End of the Ten Years' War  1878
Ninth Revolt (Calixto Garcia)  1879
Agueno Calls on the Cubans to Revolt  1883
Unsuccessful American Filibustering Expedi
tion  !884

CUBAN EVENTS.

257"

Tenth Revolt (Gomez, Maceo, Crombet)  1885
Legal Slavery Abolished by the Queen's Decree. 1886
Gov. -Gen. Salamanca Dies; Succeeded by Gen.
Rodriguez Arias  1890
Junta Central Issues a Manifesto of Warning to
Spain  1892
Cuban Independence Declared  1895

Gulf ot Mexico

ATLANTIC OCE ANe

PLACES WITH WHICH MISS CISNEROS WAS IDENTIFIED.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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