University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
THE PRISONER.

The rumor of the capture of the noted Capitan Rafael soon filled the city
and created universal satisfaction, especially among the mercantile community,
whose commerce upon the ocean this daring young buccaneer had so long interrupted.
On Wordley's return from the Palacio of the Captain-general, he
was accompanied by a party of the palace-guard whom the governor had sent
for the purpose of escorting our formidable prisoner to the city Carcel. At
Wordley's suggestion they brought a litter, as Rafael was quite to ill to
walk. Nevertheless, when the officer took possession of him he had him
heavily ironed; a broad iron collar being fastened about his neck and secured
by a padlock behind; manacles placed upon his wrists and fetters upon his
ancles, from which passed a heavy chain five feet in length connecting them
with the iron collar about his neck, and linked also to the hand-cuffs.

When Rafael had been thus ironed, he took leave of us with calmness, and
said to Wordley,

`Fare well, sir! To-morrow I shall be in the other world! We shall meet
no more in this. Accept my grateful acknowledgements for your humanity
and kindness to me. Farewell and prosper in your noble profession. What
I have done, I have done. I must bear the ignominy of my own acts.”

He was borne upon the litter into the barge along side and it pulled to the
shore surrounded and followed by at least a hundred boats filled with those
whom the knowledge of the circumstances had drawn to the scene. When
he landed the crowd upon the Quay was so dense that the soldiers from the
Plaza had to open a passage in the rear to the water for the escort to pass up
from the landing.

Towards sunset we also went on shore and walked up to the American coffee
house. There we learned that “El Saltador” as every one called him,
was to be broken on the wheel at nine o'clock the next morning in the Campo
of Public Execution's outside the walls not far from the alameda.

`Poor fellow,' ejaculated Wordley; `let us go and see him and endeavor
to cheer him in his last hours. He has been a great criminal but there is
much to admire in his character. He is not wholly depraved. I will wait
on the governor and get permission to see him and also endeavor to have his
chains removed. Let us go at once to the Palace!'

On reaching the entrance, Wordley gave his name to the sentinel at the
gate who despatched it by a sergeant to the Captain-general. In a few moments
he returned and asked us to follow him. We ascended the spacious

stair-case of the Palacio to an upper corridor at the opposite side of which was
a spacious hall where we found the vice-gerent of Cuba promonading with
two Spanish officers dressed in gorgeous uniforms. On perceiving Wordley,
His Excellency recognized him and advanced three or four steps to meet him.

`Ah Senior Capitan Americano,' he exclaimed with a smile of great satisfaction.
`I am glad to see you. I was about to send a message on board
your vessel of war inviting you to do me the honor to dine with me to-morrow.
You have done me and all men great service in capturing this buccaneer
whom we have so long desired to take, and the highest honors we can render
you will poorly express our pleasure and indebtedness!'

`I have but done my duty as an officer in the service of my country,' answered
Wordley. `Has your Excellency yet spoken with the prisoner?'

`No! He lies in the dungeon of the condemned in chains! I will see him
when he is led forth to execution!'

`Is your Excellency aware that he is wounded?'

`Yes. Is it severely?'

`So much so, that without being chained there is little fear that he will escape.
I should esteem it a favor if your Excellency would give orders to take
off his chains and let the last hours of his unhappy life be lightened!'

`I fear the man too much, Senor Capitan, not to take the greatest precautions
against his escape. He is a daring man, and would escape where no
other man could! Pardon me, but I must decline acceding to your humane request.
I am resolved this man shall not elude me. He shall be broken on the
wheel to-morrow as I live! Once I have condemned him to be shot; a second
time I have condemned him to the wheel! He shall not have the hair's breadth
of a chance given him for a third condemnaton and sentence. Twice condemned
is enough! What other favor have I it in my power to grant you?'

`Permission, with my friend, to visit Captain Rafael in his cell!'

`That I will grant and will myself accompany you,' answered Tacon with
animation. I would like to see him. Come in and take coffee with me, and
after a cigar we will proceed to his prison!'

We accompanied the Captain-general across the noble hall and being joined
by the Spanish officers were issued by a slave into a cool verandah opening
upon an orange and lemon garden where coffee and cigars awaited us. It
was just after sunset, and the mellow radiance of the golden twilight pervaded
all the atmosphere. The air was laden with the fragrance of innumerable
flowers, and the branches of the orange-trees were filled with singing birds,
and fountains cooled the air! The hum of the busy city, scarcely penetrated
to this retired spot where the energetic Captain-general of Cuba threw off the
cares and restraints of his responsible position.

Coffee of delicious fragrance was handed to us by slaves dressed in muslin
trousers and jackets, and others followed with semillas, a hard sweet buscuit,
and another with cigars on a silver salver, and another with a silver lamp.—

We did not take our seats around a table but upon settees and ottomans placed
around the verandah in the coolest situations. The governor and Spanish
officers smoked and drank coffee, whiffed and sipped alternately with infinite
gusto. We, however, contented ourselves with taking the cigars after coffee.
If any thing could have surpassed the delicate flavor of the coffee, it was the
flavor of the cigars. Out of Havana such luxuries as the governor regaled us
with are unknown. They were truthfully named `Regalias.'

While we were smoking Wordley enquired what was to be done with the
pirate-crew which had been removed from the schooner of war to the city prison.

`They are to be hung to-morrow,' answered Tacon firmly. `All of them but
eleven are those who escaped with El Saltador. But I shall hang them all alike
without trial, for these men should not have been in such company if they
expected any clemency.'

`No pirate deserves to live an hour after his capture,' said one of the Spanish
officers. `Taken under a piritical flag is enough to hang them without
trial! They are all too inhuman to live!'

`Not so, Don Ferdinand,' said the Captain-general smiling. `So long as I
have a neice I shall remember that but for one of these pirates she would have
been lost to me forever!'

`How was he of service to her, your Excellency?' asked Wordley with true
Yankee inquisitiveness.

`In this way,' answered the Governor lighting a third `Regalia.' Three
years and a half ago my brother died in Spain. He was a widower with only
one child, at the time of his death. This child, a lovely girl of thirteen, he
bequeathed to my paternal care and affection. I sent for her to come to Cuba,
and in a Spanish brig of war that was soon to sail. The day before she
was to embark, the brig of war wrecked, with half the vessels, in the port of
Cadiz, upon the quay. My neice, the Donna Leonor, anxious to reach me, embarked
in a merchant vessel which, when within four days of Havana, was
chased and captured by a pirate. They plundered the vessel of the most valuable
articles they could lay their hands on, and the buccaneer captain struck
with the beauty of Donna Leonor determined to take her and her servants on
board of his vessel, leaving the ship to proceed on her voyage. He was only
prevented from carrying the fancy into execution by his lieutenant, a very
young man, and as Donna Leonor describes, very handsome and noble, who
interfered to protect her at the risk of his own life, threatening to shoot his captain
dead upon the spot if he dared to lay his hand upon her. The young officer
was seconded by several of the pirates whom he called around him, and
the buccaneer captain sullenly yielded to the control of a spirit more indomitaable
than his own. In a word Donna Leonor was saved the ignominy and
wretchedness of becoming a Corsair's bride by the young man's daring; and
the vessel was suffered to proceed on her voyage bringing me my loved niece

in safety. She now never hears of pirates being taken that she does'nt ask
me to be sure before they are shot that `her preserver,' as she terms the bold
young pirate, is not one of them!'

Wordley and I looked at one another during this recital and exchanged
looks of surprise and of mutual intelligence. Facts precisely like these Rafael
had related to us subsequently to the general narrative he had given of his
life; and had stated that they occurred when he was acting under his first
captain. He did not, however, say who the young maiden was, whom he had
protected; and it is probable that her rank was concealed from him by the Spanish
Captain, lest large ransom should have been demanded. If Rafael had
known the young girl he had protected to be the niece of the Captain-general,
it would have been natural that he should have made known to him his services
when he was formerly his prisoner. But then, his pride was so high, it is
doubtful whether he would have condescended to take advantage of such a
circumstances towards mitigating his sentence.

`I have heard Captain Rafael relate a similar incident in which he was an
actor, your Excellency,' said Wordley. `I should not be surprised if he should
prove to have been the gallant man who saved your niece, Donna Leonor!'

`Was Don Rafael second in command at the time, and was it about three
years and a half ago?'

`Yes, your Excellency, so he informs us!'

`Did he tell you the name of the ship on board which the young girl he protected
was passenger?'

`The Carlos III.'

The very same vessel in which Donna Leonor came!' exclaimed the Captain
general with surprise. `Can it be possible this is the same person?'

`It must be without question,' answered Wordley.

`I trust it will not prove so,' answered his Excellency with a look of anxiety.
`I should be sorry to execute a man who has done me and mine such good
service! But we will ascertain this!'

The Captain-general then gave orders to have `El Saltador' brought, in chains
as he was, into his presence. The day had now closed and numerous wax candles
supplied the loss of day-light. While the captain of the body-guard was
despatched for the prisoner, His Excellency went out and soon returned leading
in a lovely girl of seventeen, with dark Castillian eyes and hair, and a form
of bewitching symmetry. He presented us to her as the Donna Leonor, his
neice. In a few moments the clinking of chains and the tramp of the heavy
feet of the soldiers who bore the litter, announced the approach of Rafael.—
They entered and deposited their burden. Rafael reclined upon his elbow
and looked calmly around. He was very pale but his countenance was firm
and composed. It wore a slight air of surprise as if wondering why he had
been brought into the presence of Tacon.

`Leonor,' said the Governor, `look well at the prisoner, and —'

Before he could complete what he was about say, she, who had been all the
while attentively regarding him, exclaimed—

`It is he!'

`Who, Leonor?'

`My preserver! Oh, uncle spare him, if he is thy prisoner!'

`It is Rafael El Saltador! Shall I spare him!'

`El Saltador!' she exclaimed with a start of alarm.

`It is he? Is he the same who saved you from the Pirate chief?'

`He is!' she answered earnestly.

The expression of Rafael's face showed plainly that he recognized her, but
he remained silent, waiting the issue, and gazing on her with a look of gratitude
and surprise.