Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 22

Not a soul in all Europe knew I was in Cuba, and so long as my name did not transpire I was as safe in Cuba as if in the desert.

Consequently I determined to go on in the same way since our landing. In the mean while I would watch the papers, and if any signs of danger appeared I could take instant measures for my safety.

As the days pa.s.sed the cable dispatches appearing in the papers increased in volume, and the papers everywhere had editorials, which, as a rule, were humorous or sarcastic, poking fun at the Britishers in general and the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in particular. Then the comic papers took it up, and from week to week published cartoons intended to be funny.

One of the funniest of these came out in one of the New York comics, which appeared after the mail arrived from London with the particulars of the simplicity of the bank officials in their dealings with the mysterious F. A. Warren. This full-page cartoon represented a young dude, seated on a mule, riding down a steep declivity.

At the bottom the devil stood, holding in the fingers of his extended hands a quant.i.ty of thousand-pound bank notes tempting Warren, and John Bull stood behind the mule, belaboring it with an umbrella and driving Warren down to the devil.

I tried to keep the papers from my wife, but one day she came home from a visit with a flushed face and eager to talk, and began telling me about some daring countryman of mine "who had the audacity to rob the Bank of England," and "who ought to have a whipping." On several occasions Americans there asked my opinion as to who the party could be.

I always told them he was some clever young scamp, with plenty of money of his own, who did it for the excitement of the thing and from a wish to take a rise out of John Bull.

The next French steamer for Mexico was advertised to land at Havana for pa.s.sengers and mails for Vera Cruz in a few days, and I determined to sail by her. Soon after my arrival I had formed the acquaintance of a wealthy young countryman of mine from Savannah by the name of Gray. We soon became fast friends, and I had him out to dinner nearly every day.

He had a warm friend in Senor Andrez, a rich young Cuban planter, and had accepted an invitation to visit his coffee plantation in the Isle of Pines, the largest of all that immense body of islets and keys of the south coast of Cuba in the Carribean Sea, one of the loveliest tropical isles imaginable, and Gray insisted upon my making one of the party.

It was proposed to spend a week on the island, and to take three days in going and coming. But if I went then I would be unable to sail on the steamer of the 25th, and would have to wait another week.

One day Gray brought Senor Andrez to dinner, along with a common friend, a Senor Alvarez. All three joined in imploring me to make one of the party, promising sport as novel as good; said the wild boars were plentiful; that we would have two days' shark fishing, turning turtles and hunting their eggs, and could vary it by a slave hunt, the jungle and some of the smaller islands being "full of runaways," and as they were by law wild beasts we might be lucky enough to shoot a few of them--shoot, not capture, as the planters knew that a runaway slave who had tasted the joys of freedom if caught was useless as a slave. So, as a matter of sport, as well as a warning to other slaves, they organized yearly hunts to bag a score or two. But so great is the depravity of the human heart that these wretches, in their desperate wickedness, objected to being shot, and at times were guilty of the enormity of shooting back again. History records how, on certain occasions, they did so with such good effect that the hunted became hunters; but these were rare events.

After long urging I consented. At the time there were only two short railways in all Cuba. We were to cross the island to the south coast, and there embark for the Isle of Pines in a boat owned by our host, which would be in waiting. The railway would take us to the little hamlet of San Felipe, some forty miles south, and there we were to take horses to the seaport town of Cajio. We were to start on Sat.u.r.day, two days ahead. My wife did not relish my going, and I disliked it more than she did, but for totally different reasons. Mine were that, as a matter of prudence, I ought to recall my consent and remain in Havana until steamer day, and then sail without fail to Mexico. But fearing the ridicule of my friends, I went, persuading myself that there could be no danger and that everything in London was buried in so dense a fog bank that the detectives would struggle in vain to find a way out of it or any clue to our ident.i.ty.

Had I known of the clever work of the Pinkerton brothers in London and the discoveries in Paris I should have been ill at ease; but had I known that Capt. John Curtin--then a member of the Pinkerton staff in New York, but now (1895.) of San Francisco--had with perfectly marvelous intuition and rare detective skill let daylight into the whole plot, and had reported to his chief that whenever F. A. Warren was discovered he would prove to be Austin Bidwell; I say if I had known this, instead of going off on a ten days' pleasure jaunt into an isolated corner of the world I should have taken instant flight, leaving Cuba, not by the usual modes of departure, but by sailing boat, and alone, for one of the Mexican ports.

Capt. Curtin had been detailed to work on the New York end of the case, to look for clues. It seemed a hopeless task. He is a warm friend of mine now, after twenty years, and has long forgiven me for the bullet I lodged in him in 1873. A few years after arresting me in the West Indies he went to San Francisco and started a private inquiry office of his own at 328 Montgomery street. When, after twenty years' incarceration, I arrived there one lovely May in 1892, he was waiting for me at the ferry, and gave me warm greetings, and as hearty congratulations, too, as any man could give another; then introduced me to his friends everywhere, and, in fact, from the hour of my arrival until my departure, three months afterward, was never tired of doing me a service and forwarding my business, so that by his kind offices I made a great success out of what, by reason of the great financial depression, might otherwise have proved a failure. But as Capt. Curtin, after effecting my arrest, having recovered from his wound, was one of the four who took me to England, I will wait until a later chapter to tell how it was he discovered my name and located me in Cuba.

On Sat.u.r.day morning our party of four, accompanied by a following of black fellows and half a dozen dogs, set out by train. Before reaching San Felipe our bones had a shaking. The roadbed was execrable, the trucks of the cars were without springs, and to me it seemed as if we must leave the rails at any moment.

In Havana we regarded Don Andrez as a good fellow, but upon our arrival at San Felipe he had grown into a man of importance. When we came to Cajio he had grown into a person of distinction, and at the island he had swollen into a local Caesar. At San Felipe, a mere hamlet, horses were waiting for us and mules for the baggage, but before setting out we went to a nearby hacienda and sat down to what was simply the best lunch of which I ever partook.

The town was chiefly remarkable for the number of its fighting c.o.c.ks. At the hacienda there were dozens, each in its separate compartment--regarded the same as horses and game dogs are in England and America--and half the black boys we met were carrying game birds.

At last, starting for Cajio, the road soon degenerated into a mere track, which led through some barren hills with scanty growths of a species of oak without underbrush, and here and there a sprinkling of cacti, and in the lower reaches between the hills grew dense green walls of Spanish bayonet.

We were crossing Cuba at its narrowest part, and from San Felipe to Cajio was only some thirty miles. After fifteen miles we came into the fertile coast belt and pa.s.sed a number of deserted sugar plantations where tropic vegetation was trying to cover up the work of ruin wrought by man. Residences and sugar houses destroyed by fire were very much in evidence. To my surprise I learned that bodies of insurgents--who then held and had held for six years nearly the entire eastern province of Santiago de Cuba and Puerto Principe, and part of the extreme western province of Pinar del Rio--had only a few weeks before landed by night at the port La Playa de Batabano, fifteen miles away, and with the cry of "Free Cuba and death to the Spaniard!" had blotted out the town and then marched into the heart of the country, burning houses, killing the whites and calling upon the slaves to join them in freeing Cuba. Many did, and terrible were their excesses, and terribly did they pay for these. The Spanish soldiers and loyal Cuban volunteers closed in upon them, and at the little hamlet of San Marcos, where we halted and examined the too evident signs of the battle and ma.s.sacre that followed, they made their last stand, but were no match for their well-armed and disciplined foes. After a desperate struggle they were overpowered, and every surviving soul was butchered by the infuriated soldiers. It was better so. Had they been spared it would have only been for the moment, for by official decree of the Captain-General of Cuba, indorsed by the Madrid Government, every inhabitant within the insurrectionary line, without regard to age or s.e.x, was doomed to death without form of trial.

At San Marcos we made a halt to view the scene of the fight and examined the heaps of ashes where the fires were kindled which consumed the bodies of the slain. Two or three were my countrymen. At the time it was quite the thing for venturesome Americans to go and join the rebels and help the fight for "Cuba libre." For some years every few days notices would appear in the press about some Americans having been shot for joining or attempting to join the rebels. This went on until the affair of the steamer Virginus, when her crew and pa.s.sengers, to the number of 150, were shot, the steamer having been captured close to the sh.o.r.e and about to land men and guns. Then our Government awoke and forbade Spanish officials to shoot Americans without trial.

As I stood there curiously examining the marks of the conflict, or examining some part of an unconsumed bone, I little thought that in a very few days I myself would be a fugitive, creeping through jungles and over tropic plains, seeking to join the comrades of the men on whose ashes I was then treading, to aid their fight for free Cuba.

Perhaps my subsequent fate made me ponder over my happy life in Cuba, and compare the horrible misery of my prison life, with its hardships and degrading detail, with the brightness of those days, when love, obedience, wealth and luxury were mine.

But in those long years, when in their gloom and depression I was fighting to keep off insanity by ignoring the dreadful present and dwelling on the past, no incident of all my life on the island haunted me more than this at San Marcos. Every detail was photographed on my brain, and as I recalled that blackened spot strewn with ashes soddened by tropical rains, soon to be all the greener for the fertilizing tragedy, many a thousand times I said, "Would to G.o.d my ashes were mingled with the dead there."

Soon after leaving San Marcos, striking into the jungle, the road became so narrow that we had to go single file. I found the silence of the tropical forest impressive, and think it had its effect on us all--even the negroes and dogs moved on, making no sound. Although novel scenes, yet I was glad when 5 o'clock came and we emerged from the jungle on to the coast road. It was sandy, but well traveled. Another mile and we were in Cajio, and the Caribbean, blue and lovely as a dream, lay spread before us, with hundreds of palm crowned islets and coral bays, all with sandy beaches of dazzling whiteness.

Senor Andrez had a house here, and as they had notice of our coming everything was prepared for our reception. Entering the house, we were served with black coffee and thin rice cakes fried. Gray and I wanted a swim before supper in the waters, which looked very tempting, but it would have been a breach of etiquette to indulge then--and, by the way, there is a strange repugnance to water inherent in the Spanish nature, there being no bathhouses in Spain, they say, and I believe it. Gray and I, during the next few days, were in and out of the water at all hours, but could never persuade any one else to try the experiment of a swim in the warm water of the Caribbean. At the house, or when out in boats, we frequently invited some of the company to join us in a plunge, but none ever accepted the invitation. We are told on good authority that "our virtues depend on the interpretation of the times," and one might add "on the interpretation of our nation." The Anglo-Saxon loves soap and water and plenty of it; the Spaniard does not. But this contrast may mean nothing in our favor; there may be a reason for it, racial probably, but possibly climatic.

Supper came, and it was a treat. Gray and I noted that in suitability of material to the purpose intended, and in cookery, it excelled anything in our experience. Cafe Riche and Tortoni's were not in it. We were curious to see the cook. She was ordered in for our inspection, a sober, sad-faced negress, angular, bony, and, strangely enough, knew only a few words of Spanish, her language being some African dialect, Africa being her natal place, as it, indeed, was of most of the slaves.

What views of life, what views of the Christian world most of these slaves must have! Torn from their homes, leaving their slaughtered family on the ashes of their homes, and carried off to toil and wear out the only life nature will ever give them--for what? To toil amid hunger and abuse too foul to name in order that the Christian robber may have gold to gratify his desire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ANOTHER SECOND WOULD HAVE ENDED MY LIFE."--Page 371.]

She was evidently alarmed over the summons--it might mean anything--she was unused to the coin of compliment; but we gave it freely, however, and the next morning each of us did better, and when departing placed a sovereign in her hand and made Senor Andrez promise to be good to her.

Our host grew his own tobacco and made his own cigars. These were famous even in Havana, and Gray and I enjoyed them that evening. A number of gra.s.s-woven hammocks were swung under a roof in front of the house. It was delightful lying there watching the phosph.o.r.escent waves rippling or breaking on the beach under the light of a full moon and listening to the chatter or the songs of the black fellows who swarmed around while smoking cigars worth the smoking. The negro children, shrill-voiced and loud, were very much in evidence.

The air was delightful, and following the custom of the country we slept in the hammocks without undressing.

The next morning, under a sunrise sky, which in its glowing colors looked like the New Jerusalem, Gray and I made a break for the glorious water that rippled on the beach. What a swim we had! We were the only humans visible. All other unfeathered bipeds were asleep, and we varied our bath by wandering around the beach in a state of nature, viewing things generally, but a turtle pond held us fascinated. Stakes had been driven down inclosing a s.p.a.ce, and upward of twenty great turtles were prisoners, waiting apparently with the greatest of patience to be devoured--that being, so far as I can see, the ultimate destination of all life--that huge procession to the stomach. The rocks tell us that it began a good while ago, and it has kept up with crowded ranks ever since. When the missionary landing in Fiji anxiously inquired of the boss cannibal gentleman where his predecessor might be sojourning, he was promptly informed that he had "gone into the interior." To "go into the interior" is the decree fate writes in her book of doom and copies on the birth certificate of all the breathers of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUGAR LOAF MOUNTAIN, View from Rio de Janeiro.]

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE PHILISTINES ARE UPON THEE, SAMSON.

I was very fortunate in my servant Nunn, he being devoted to me, a resolute fellow as well, and thoroughly trustworthy. He felt very badly over my leaving him behind in Havana. Nor would I have done so under ordinary circ.u.mstances.

The day before leaving on the trip, taking him aside, but not wishing to actually disclose anything, I talked in a very impressive, grave way, instructing him to leave Havana secretly after telling his mistress that I had ordered him to go to Matanzas, a city forty miles east by rail. He was to bring all the New York papers, meet me at Cajio and not let a soul know his destination, but be there awaiting my arrival from the Isle of Pines the following Sunday week. If in the mean time anything unusual, no matter what, happened, then he was instantly to depart for Cajio, there hire a boat and crew and come after me, not to mind expense and not to lose a moment's time. Nunn was one of those wise men who know how to obey orders without self-questionings as to the whys and wherefores.

I had secured gun licenses from the authorities, and, giving them to Nunn, ordered him to bring a breech-loader and a brace of revolvers with him.

During my stay in the Isle of Pines I would be out of reach of the outside world. If on meeting Nunn I found from the papers he brought that there was any sign of danger I would not return to Havana, but would secure a boat, provision it, set sail alone for some port in Central America and send my servant back after my wife.

At 10 o'clock our party set out in an open-decked cargo boat from Cajio for San Jose, seventy miles across the water and on the west coast of the island. San Jose was one of the half-dozen plantations belonging to our host, the chief product being coffee, and on this one there were 130 slaves.

We had a motley cargo. Twenty black fellows, dogs, turtles, fighting c.o.c.ks, two trained pigs, a good-sized snake that answered to the name of Jacko and had the run of the ship. Ship, men, women and young darkies, trained pigs and everything except we three guests were the absolute property of our host.

We were pa.s.sing through the gate of the Gulf of Matamano. The bottom was so white and the water so clear that we could see distinctly all the wondrous marine life beneath. Ash.o.r.e in the thick forests all seemed to be dead, but here in the water and beneath the surface all was teeming with life. Flocks of sea fowl were in the air or whitened the rocks which everywhere rose above the waters, and innumerable little islets rested like lovely pictures in the blue setting of the sea.

At one of the loveliest, called Cayos de Tana, with a wide fringe of white beach, we landed; that is, our boat ran toward it until the keel stuck in the sand, when a dozen black fellows sprang over into the water, and, taking us white trash on their shoulders, carried us ash.o.r.e.

Once there we set out to find turtle eggs, and soon found heaps of sand which, when sc.r.a.ped away, revealed the eggs in dozens. We took away about a bushel, but they had a rancid flavor, so Gray and I backed out of our promise to eat them, as did Senors Andrez and Mondago.

The man in charge of the boat was a skillful sailor, and, having a fine breeze, we rushed through the water at a great rate. At last, after a day of novel enjoyment, just as the short twilight of the tropics was fading out, we ran alongside of the little pier of San Jose and were welcomed with loud shouts and gun shots from about a hundred gaudily attired slaves, who were excited and seemingly glad over the return of their master, this being Sunday and a holiday.

Did any of my readers ever think what the rest of Sunday is to the toilers of the earth? If Christ left no other legacy to the Christian world but that happy day of rest, then must we still bless and praise him as the Mighty Benefactor of the world, the Saviour and glorious hero of the workingman. For nineteen years I toiled, exposed to every storm that blew, and was sustained through all the six days' misery by the blessed knowledge that Sunday, with its rest, was never far off. And when the Sunday morning dawned and the happy consciousness filled my mind that for one day at least I was free from toil, my heart filled with grat.i.tude to the Galilean carpenter, who, by his gracious deeds and genius, had so impressed the hearts of men that for his sake they had taken the seventh day of the Hebrew and bequeathed it as a day of rest to all the toiling generations of the sons of men. The Roman Empire, which overshadowed the world and held the nations in subjection, knew no day of rest, and to-day the toiling millions of China never wake to say: "This is a day of rest on which I can turn my thoughts to other things than toil."

I must not here enter into details of that week of rare sport and keen enjoyment in the Isle of Pines. We went shark fishing by day and tipping turtles in the moonlight by night, when they came ash.o.r.e to deposit their eggs in the sand. One never-ending source of enjoyment to the Cubans was the battles of the fighting c.o.c.ks. I had got over some of my repugnance to the sport, and enjoyed it almost as well as the c.o.c.ks themselves. How soon one learns to do in Rome as do the Romans!

The week had come to an end, and, although importuned by my host to delay my departure, my anxiety as to the state of affairs in the outside world was too great to postpone my return to the mainland. So, after a rousing send-off from every one on the plantation, I departed. Just as the sun was flinging its dyes over the clouds and waters, one week from the Sunday of my arrival at San Jose, I was sailing into the little bay of Cajio. Gray was to remain another week, and I was returning in a small sloop manned by two of Senor Andrez's men. I found Nunn waiting for me on the beach. He handed me a letter from my wife and said everything was well at home. Opening the letter I found an earnest appeal to return at once. Going to the hacienda near by I took the bundle of New York and London papers Nunn had brought. I went to my room, and, opening the Herald I was amazed to see the storm over the Bank of England business and the great desire to discover the mysterious Warren.

I felt that the time had come when it would no longer be prudent for me to live under my right name. It was an easy matter to invent a name and live under it, and I determined to do so, for a time at least, until after I saw how matters developed. But I could not do this in Havana, for in case of using an alias it would be necessary to take my wife into my confidence. She was sure to discover the matter sooner or later, and it was better for her to learn the miserable truth from my own lips than to leave the discovery to come to her through the public press.