Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1894-01-25

f'A'-As INV l'NN'uliRA hNtts
insects, birds and flora near the Campo
Indeed would not Matagas permit him
to unpnck his pNnnicrs that his host
might enjoy view Of his splendid
specimens there, at onceg These and
countless other questions fell garTulously
from the professors ready lips.
Many were deity parted; some were
answered unbesitatingly; others were
silently tolerated.; until with kindly
shrng of his shoulders, as though the
old don's childish simplicity and end
less contemplation OF his single life aim
had put him quite outside the metes
and bounds of other mems measure
ment, he babe the absorbed scientist
kindly "Bueno nochel" and took his
way to his own little hut.
There in the freight a moment later
he could have been seen explaining it
all to Tomasa and ,Juanita; tapping his
shaggy head significantly; making many
merry and derisive gestures toward
Juanita's bird cages, his stout sides
shaking with laughter; while old To.
masa's face slowly changed from merri-
ment to something akin to passive re-
Election, and the face of the girl beside
her, at first as mirthful as her mothers,
settled gradully into a grave, glowing
look of indetinable hunger and desire
that had never before touched it in her
whole wildwood life
The professors elevated bunk, laid
with the silvery-white and downy
lengua de vaca grass, was where he had
an almost unobstructed view, through
an aperture in the palmetto side of the
cabin, Of the cafboneros' picturesque
camp. If he reflected upon aught be-
sides the wonderful promise his situa-
ton gave of increasing his scientific
store, the strange scene before him, what
the outlaw bad with perfect frankness
disclosed, and what he must himself
have known, could not but give mar
Vicious interest to his surroundings.
Here were hundreds of families living
in the forest in true communistic man.
ner Their common outlawry, in the
eyes of hated and merciless Spanish
law, had brought them all together.
The endless heart.sob of Cuba for free
dom, ever strangled by Spanish tyranny
ending again and again in uprisings,
revolution, butchery and despair, was
their one tie of brotherhood. Car
boneros and labradors, charcoal. burners
and wood-choppcrs, they were now,
here and there in the countless and
almost inaccessible Cuban forests, noun
tain forests surely inaccessible to the
coward Spanish soldiery; with now and
then daring fellow like Matagas at
their head who terrorized only Spanish
hirelings, and those most through the
frenzy of their own guilty fear; but all
living lives of Arcadian peace and SIM
plicity, until anew should be raised that
glorious standard of white and blue and
red, gemmed with single star, which
had waved such terror TO Spaniards over
the blood.swept fields of Camaguay.
All this is what the professor could
have known, or knew.
AS it was still early evening, what he
heard was the tuneful thrum of the
guitar, the tremulous notes of the ban
durria, the Ginning twang Of the man
dolin and the sharp click of castanets,
in soft accompaniment to Cuban songs
OF love, of daring and Of war. Now
and then these rose to startling choruses
among the huts and far out beyond,
where the night-watches were busy at
the smoldering pyres.
Az last lhe spell OF the melody brought
them all together before Matagas' hut.
There these half-wild, happy. hearted
men and women, big.eyed and half
naked muchachos and ninas, loutish
guardabosqueros and coquettish maid
ems, danced upon the grimy, smooth
worn earth such hilarious zapateos, such
outlandish Habaneras and such gro.
tesque fandangoes as would have caused
even plaster Spanish saint to wink,
and so dazed the old don's eyes that he
turned them with sigh toward the
glowing stars pulsing in their tropic
fires above; and then fell softly TO his
slumbers, wherein he was haunted by
swarthy forms, huge machetes and one
deep-forest beauty's face, starred round
about with marvellous specimens and
unknown birds, throughout the livelong
summer night.