Part 8 (1/2)
The young man had been speaking impetuously, but he stopped as suddenly, for the senator was not listening to him. He had lowered his eyes and was looking with a glance of mingled fascination and disgust at Arkwright's hands. In his earnestness the young man had stretched them out, and as they showed behind the line of his ragged sleeves the others could see, even in the blurred light and falling snow, that the wrists of each hand were gashed and cut in dark-brown lines like the skin of a mulatto, and in places were a raw red, where the fresh skin had but just closed over. The young man paused and stood s.h.i.+vering, still holding his hands out rigidly before him.
The senator raised his eyes slowly and drew away.
”What is that?” he said in a low voice, pointing with a gloved finger at the black lines on the wrists.
A sergeant in the group of policemen who had closed around the speakers answered him promptly from his profound fund of professional knowledge.
”That's handcuffs, senator,” he said importantly, and glanced at Stanton as though to signify that at a word from him he would take this suspicious character into custody. The young man pulled the frayed cuffs of his s.h.i.+rt over his wrists and tucked his hands, which the cold had frozen into an ashy blue, under his armpits to warm them.
”No, they don't use handcuffs in the field,” he said in the same low, eager tone; ”they use ropes and leather thongs; they fastened me behind a horse and when he stumbled going down the trail it jerked me forward and the cords would tighten and tear the flesh. But they have had a long time to heal now. I have been eight months in prison.”
The young men at the carriage window had ceased smiling and were listening intently. One of them stepped out and stood beside the carriage door looking down at the s.h.i.+vering figure before him with a close and curious scrutiny.
”Eight months in prison!” echoed the police sergeant with a note of triumph; ”what did I tell you?”
”Hold your tongue!” said the young man at the carriage door. There was silence for a moment, while the men looked at the senator, as though waiting for him to speak.
”Where were you in prison, Mr. Arkwright?” he asked.
”First in the calaboose at Santa Clara for two months, and then in Cabanas. The Cubans who were taken when I was, were shot by the fusillade on different days during this last month. Two of them, the Ezetas, were father and son, and the Volunteer band played all the time the execution was going on, so that the other prisoners might not hear them cry 'Cuba Libre' when the order came to fire. But we heard them.”
The senator s.h.i.+vered slightly and pulled his fur collar up farther around his face. ”I'd like to talk with you,” he said, ”if you have nothing to do to-morrow. I'd like to go into this thing thoroughly.
Congress must be made to take some action.”
The young man clasped his hands eagerly. ”Ah, Mr. Stanton, if you would,” he cried, ”if you would only give me an hour! I could tell you so much that you could use. And you can believe what I say, sir--it is not necessary to lie--G.o.d knows the truth is bad enough. I can give you names and dates for everything I say. Or I can do better than that, sir.
I can take you there yourself--in three months I can show you all you need to see, without danger to you in any way. And they would not know me, now that I have grown a beard, and I am a skeleton to what I was.
I can speak the language well, and I know just what you should see, and then you could come back as one speaking with authority and not have to say, 'I have read,' or 'have been told,' but you can say, 'These are the things I have seen'--and you could free Cuba.”
The senator coughed and put the question aside for the moment with a wave of the hand that held his cigar. ”We will talk of that to-morrow also. Come to lunch with me at one. My apartments are in the Berkeley on Fifth Avenue. But aren't you afraid to go back there?” he asked curiously. ”I should think you'd had enough of it. And you've got a touch of fever, haven't you?” He leaned forward and peered into the other's eyes.
”It is only the prison fever,” the young man answered; ”food and this cold will drive that out of me. And I must go back. There is so much to do there,” he added. ”Ah, if I could tell them, as you can tell them, what I feel here.” He struck his chest sharply with his hand, and on the instant fell into a fit of coughing so violent that the young man at the carriage door caught him around the waist, and one of the policemen supported him from the other side.
”You need a doctor,” said the senator kindly. ”I'll ask mine to have a look at you. Don't forget, then, at one o'clock to-morrow. We will go into this thing thoroughly.” He shook Arkwright warmly by the hand and stooping stepped into the carriage. The young man who had stood at the door followed him and crowded back luxuriously against the cus.h.i.+ons.
The footman swung himself up beside the driver, and said ”Uptown Delmonico's,” as he wrapped the fur rug around his legs, and with a salute from the policemen and a sc.r.a.ping of hoofs on the slippery asphalt the great man was gone.
”That poor fellow needs a doctor,” he said as the carriage rolled up the avenue, ”and he needs an overcoat, and he needs food. He needs about almost everything, by the looks of him.”
But the voice of the young man in the corner of the carriage objected drowsily--
”On the contrary,” he said, ”it seemed to me that he had the one thing needful.”
By one o'clock of the day following, Senator Stanton, having read the reports of his speech in the morning papers, punctuated with ”Cheers,”
”Tremendous enthusiasm” and more ”Cheers,” was still in a willing frame of mind toward Cuba and her self-appointed envoy, young Mr. Arkwright.
Over night he had had doubts but that the young man's enthusiasm would bore him on the morrow, but Mr. Arkwright, when he appeared, developed, on the contrary, a practical turn of mind which rendered his suggestions both flattering and feasible. He was still terribly in earnest, but he was clever enough or serious enough to see that the motives which appealed to him might not have sufficient force to move a successful statesman into action. So he placed before the senator only those arguments and reasons which he guessed were the best adapted to secure his interest and his help. His proposal as he set it forth was simplicity itself.
”Here is a map of the island,” he said; ”on it I have marked the places you can visit in safety, and where you will meet the people you ought to see. If you leave New York at midnight you can reach Tampa on the second day. From Tampa we cross in another day to Havana. There you can visit the Americans imprisoned in Morro and Cabanas, and in the streets you can see the starving pacificos. From Havana I shall take you by rail to Jucaro, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Cienfuegos. You will not be able to see the insurgents in the fields--it is not necessary that you should--but you can visit one of the sugar plantations and some of the insurgent chiefs will run the forts by night and come in to talk with you. I will show you burning fields and houses, and starving men and women by the thousands, and men and women dying of fevers. You can see Cuban prisoners shot by a firing squad and you can note how these rebels meet death. You can see all this in three weeks and be back in New York in a month, as any one can see it who wishes to learn the truth. Why, English members of Parliament go all the way to India and British Columbia to inform themselves about those countries, they travel thousands of miles, but only one member of either of our houses of Congress has taken the trouble to cross these eighty miles of water that lie between us and Cuba. You can either go quietly and incognito, as it were, or you can advertise the fact of your going, which would be better. And from the moment you start the interest in your visit will grow and increase until there will be no topic discussed in any of our papers except yourself, and what you are doing and what you mean to do.