Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
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 Saturday 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 cocks. 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 passed 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 massacre 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 sex, 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 passengers, to the number of
150, were shot, the steamer having been captured close to the shore 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 God 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.
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
grass-woven hammocks were swung under a roof in front of the house. It
was delightful lying there watching the phosphorescent 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 space, 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.
CHAPTER XXXI.
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 circumstances.
The day before leaving on the trip, taking him aside, but not wishing to