Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate Part 4

How Havana Got its Market

Among the Spanish governors of Cuba, some of whom managed by strict economy to save a million dollars out of a salary of forty thousand dollars,--men of Weyler's stamp,--it is pleasant to know of one or two who really had the good of the island at heart. Such was the honest Blanco, and such was Tacon, to whom Havana owes much of its beauty and architectural character. He did what he could to abolish brigandage, which under preceding administrations had become common. He organized a force of night watchmen; he dealt with offenders according to their deserts, and if at times he was too severe it was because he believed that a lesson in the impartiality of justice was needed by certain favored cla.s.ses. He had a Latin's love of the sensational and spectacular, though in conduct, rather than in appearance, and in these days some of his acts would be set down to a love of self-advertising. As they had their effect, those who profited by increased safety could afford to be incurious of reasons. He startled the populace on the very day he landed. Cuba had been overrun with bandits, some masquerading as insurgents, while others prowled through the towns cutting throats in the shadow of the church. Cries of "Stop thief!" and "Murder!" were common at midday. More than one hundred people had been stabbed to death before the Chapel of Our Lord of the Good Death. Police and soldiery were terrorized, and no man cheerfully went through the side streets after dark. Startling depravity was instanced. Jose Ibarra, a mulatto, had killed seventeen people before he was hanged at the age of seventeen. It was supposed that Tacon would arrive with a flourish of trumpets and would try to impress the public. The Spanish army was represented at the landing-place by generals and colonels bedizened with bullion and b.u.t.tons; there were troops with silken flags and glittering sabres and bayonets; there was a copious exhibit of bunting; society was there in carriages, with liveried footmen and outriders; foreign diplomats were in uniform, as if to meet royalty, and the clergy had a place of honor. The boat touched the pier. A small man in civilian dress walked smartly to the land. He had a riding-whip in his hand,--symbol of his rule: for this was Tacon, and within a month he was to whip crime into its dens and make the capital of Cuba safe. His first order carried consternation to the advocates of fuss and feathers. It was to dismiss the parade, remove the decorations, send the police to their posts, and declare Havana in a state of siege. This was startling, but it gratified and a.s.sured those who had long begged for an honest and watchful government, and had continued not to get it. Crime recognized and feared this master. "In a little while," says a Cuban, "you could have gone about the streets at any hour of the night with diamonds in your open hands and n.o.body would have touched you, not even the Spanish Robert Macaire or Robin Hood, who is remembered bitterly in Andalusia,--Diego Corrientes." Merchants going to and from the bank with money had formerly been compelled to hire soldiers as guards, and when they complained of violence the magistrates had said, "Go to bed at seven, as we do, and you'll have no trouble." Thieves bought their liberty from jailers. Tacon arrested the jailers in that case.

It does not take long to erect a reputation when it has a basis of desert. An odd modern instance is told in the case of an American newspaper reporter, John C. Klein, who, after ten years of absence, was canonized by the Samoans, among whom he had lived for some years, as a hero in battle, a slayer of Germans, and a wizard who closed his own wounds by magic. The G.o.ds approved him, and the people in their trouble prayed for the return of Talaini o le Meleke (Klein, the American) to rescue them. And with Tacon it took hardly longer to become a sort of national hero. The qualities he showed in reforming, building, extending, and protecting Havana were so unusual that the people willingly credited others to him he may not have possessed. He has become legendary already.

Tacon, after gathering in two thousand of the riff-raff and putting them at work on roads, piers, and prisons, applied himself with special energy to the suppression of Marti, the most daring, yet the slyest and most cautious of all the robbers in the country. He and his band thought no more of splitting the weasand of a soldier than tossing off a gla.s.s of brandy, and the people were more than half his friends, because he joined smuggling to his other industries, and was therefore able to provide them with many necessities, such as wine and bandanas, at a price much lower than they commanded in the shops. Yet the secret agents, the constabulary, and the troops began to make it perilous for these law-breakers, and General Tacon was hopeful of their speedy capture. On a certain morning he looked up abstractedly from some letters he was writing on the case of Marti and was astonished to see a burly but well-dressed stranger standing before his desk. "How in the devil did you get in here, sir, unannounced?" he asked, in some irritation.

"I come on secret business," replied the other, in a lower tone.

"Ha! About ----"

"Exactly. About Marti."

"Speak, then. You will not be overheard. What do you know?"

"First, your Excellency, let us understand the situation. There is a large reward for this man, is there not?"

"There is. Capture him and the money is yours. Ah, I see! You wish to turn state's evidence. So much the better. You shall be protected."

"But suppose I had been a.s.sociated with the worst of these men? Suppose I had committed crimes? Suppose I had been a leader?"

"Even in that case you shall be protected."

"Give me your word, as an officer and a gentleman, that, no matter what my offences have been, I shall have an official pardon when I put you on the track of the outlaws."

"You must earn the pardon. If you know the haunts of the smugglers we shall expect you to pilot us to every one of them."

"I will do it. I am tired of an evil life, tired of hiding, tired of fear, tired of hate. I wish to come back and live among men."

"Well spoken. And Marti?"

"I shall be pardoned, absolutely, when I bring him here?"

"Absolutely. When may we expect him?"

"Now."

"Where?"

"Here."

"What! To-day? This Marti ----"

"You are looking at him."

Tacon started, and his glance fell on a couple of pistols that lay on the desk before him. He always kept them there, primed and loaded. Marti smiled, drew from beneath his coat two larger ones, handsomely mounted with silver, and placed them on the desk. "I am through with them," said he.

Tacon looked at him almost with admiration. "You begin well,"

he admitted, "and you shall have your pardon. But until you have fulfilled your promise and helped us to break up these bands of smugglers and--ah----"

"Oh, speak out: Thieves! That is right."

"Well, thieves,--we must keep you under guard."

"I am satisfied; only, let us get to work as soon as possible, and have the business over."

"We will start to-morrow."

Marti was placed in a large room in a hotel under watch of the constabulary, but free to order any comfort or luxury he could pay for. On the very next morning he set out with a posse of soldiers and visited all the resorts of his former a.s.sociates in the vicinity. The fellows had evidently suspected something, for they had made off. Their haunts being thus disclosed, however, much of their plunder was afterward recovered, and Marti's surrender having left them without a leader, they retreated to distant provinces, and safety and peace were restored to the island.

If Marti had any misgivings as to the certainty of his pardon after this exploit, he did not show them. He returned to General Tacon's office as cool and self-possessed as if he were running a boat-load of spirits under the noses of the customs officers.

"You have been true to your part of the agreement," said the general, "and I will be to mine. Here is your pardon, signed and sealed, and this is my order on the treasury for the reward for your arrest. Sly dog!"

"I accept the pardon with grat.i.tude, your Excellency, but I do not need the money. My country is poor. Let her keep it. I am rich. Never mind how I became so. Yet, if I may claim a reward, give me a monopoly of the fisheries on this coast. Havana will not suffer if your generosity takes this form."

And it did not. He got the fisheries, but he spent his profits freely, and one of the first of his benefactions was the construction of a market that had no superior in beauty and fitness elsewhere in the world.

The Justice of Tacon

When the parades were over, or church was out, or it was near time for the play, one always found a dozen officers and gallants sauntering down the Calle de Comercio, bound for the same place: the tobacco shop of Miralda Estalez. In 1835 Miralda was known all over the town as "the pretty cigar girl," and it was quite the thing for young sprigs of family to lounge against her counter, tell her how charming she was, make her light their cigarettes and sometimes take the first puff from their cigars. All this she took with jesting good-nature, chaffing all of her customers, commiserating with them in mocking tones on their fractured hearts, and lamenting the poverty that confined their purchases to the cheaper brands of her wares. She knew how far to allow a compliment to go. If it became too free the smile faded from her lip, her black eyes flashed, and an angry rose mounted into the clear olive of her cheek.

If there was one young man who, more than any other, caused these angry symptoms to appear it was the Count Almonte. His attentions had become annoying. She had told him that his flattery was distasteful; that her betrothed was Pedro Mantanez, the boatman, and that they were waiting to be married only until their savings had reached a certain figure. After one of these dismissals of more than usual frankness, the count went to his apartments in town, arrayed himself in his uniform of honorary lieutenant of the guards, asked the commandant to let him have an escort of half a dozen men, as he expected trouble at his country-place at Cerito, and within an hour or two appeared before Miralda's little shop. He entered this time with an easy, confident air and an evil smile. "You must come with me, my beauty,"

he said, trying to chuck her under the chin.

"Leave my place at once, senor. I have nothing more to say to you."

"Oh, but I have much to say to you; and to begin with, I have a warrant for your arrest."

"Arrest!"

"For theft,--the theft of a heart,--my heart."

"Your jokes are always in such wretched taste. Your heart! You never had one."

"Then my duty becomes all the easier. You see this paper? It is an order for your arrest. Will you go quietly, or do you prefer to go under guard of a whole company."

Astonished, confused, afraid, yet hoping that one of those wretched pleasantries known as practical jokes would be the upshot of this seeming outrage, the girl locked her door, allowed the count to a.s.sist her into the carriage that was in waiting, and was rapidly driven, not to the jail, not to the forts, not to the police office, but out of town--to Cerito. He a.s.sisted her to alight, urged her hastily in at the door of a handsome residence, where she was received by a couple of servants, and escorted to a large, comfortably furnished apartment, with windows barred after the fashion usual in Spanish houses.

"This, my pretty one, is your home for the future," explained the count, dropping easily upon a divan and lighting a cigar.

"What place is this?"