The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-21

little hut
There in the freight moment later,
he could have been seen explaining it all
| to TOmasa and Juauita; tapping his
shaggy head significantly; making many
merry and derisive gestures toward
| Juanita's birds cages, his stout sides
shaking with laughter; while old To-
masa,s face slowly changed from merri-
ment 10 something akin to passive refiec-
ton; and the face Of the girl beside her,
at first as mirthful as her mothers, set
tied gradually into 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 silverv-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
carboneros' picturesque camp. If he re-
Elected upon aught besides the wonderful
promise his situation gave of increasing
his scientific store, the strange scene be
fore him, what the outlaw had with per
feet frankuess disclosed, and what he
must himself have known, could not but
give a marvellous interest to his surround
ings
Here were hundreds of families living
in the forest in true COmmunistic manner
Their common outlawry. in the eyes of
hated and merciless Spanish law. had
brought them all together The endless
heart-sob of Cuba for freedom. ever
strangled by Spanish tyranny. ending
again and again in uprisings, revolution,
butchery and despair, was there one tie of
brotherhood. CarbOnerOs and labradOres.
charcoal-burners and wOOd-choppers
they were now. here and there in the
countless and almost inaccessible Cuban
forests, mountain forests surely inaccess-
f.Is
now and then daring fellow like Malta
gas 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 a 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 1t was still early evening, what he
heard was the tuneful thrum of the
guitar, the tremulOus notes of
the bandurria, the Ginning twang
Of the mandolin and the sharp
click Of castanets, in soft accompaniment
10 Cuban songs of love, of daring and of
war. Now and then these rose to start
lag chOruses among the huts and far out
beyond, where the night-watches we're
busy at the smoldering pyres.
AT last the 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 guardabOs-
queros and coquettish maidens, danced
upon the grimy, smooth-worn earth such
hilarious zapateos, such outlandish Haba-
neras and such grotesque fandangoes a
would have caused even a plaster Spanish
saint to wink, and so dazed the old don $
eyes that he turned them with a sigh to-
ward 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 I'M
known birds, throughout the live long
summer night. st..t..,@.
Don Eduardo slept late into the morn
ing. When he awoke and had partaxen
of the fruit and food placed beside him.
he found the carboneros' camp droning
along peacefully in its every day aspect
His precious panniers were safe. No
harm had befallen him. The weird ex-
periences of the previous night seemed
like half-caught memories of some fan
tastic dream.
Yet there were the burning charcoal
pyres Tethered not far distant stood
his faithful donkey. Faint and distant
thuddings, like the proud boomings of
the prairie fowl in northern frosty spring
time mornings, told of the woodchoppers'
steady toll. Women and children were
carrying tree limbs and stacking them in
pyramidal piles. Ninas and maidens
were going and coming between cabins
and mOuntain-side fountains. Wise old
Tomasa stood beside her hut door strip
ping some cocoa leaves and roots which,
with delicious ChicharOnes or pork scraps,
were to serve for the coming meal and
out there at the camp edge was Matagas,
still bareheaded and bdrefooted, moving
with fine, strong tread toward an almost
completed pyre with an OK teams load of
timbers upon his splendid shoulders and
head.
"A strange bandits stronghold, -
thought the don, where on every hand
are serious labor and sturdy love!n
All, the witchery of that last word !
Why did this weakened scientist, the in
slant 1t escaped his lips, as some swift and
subtle sympathy of relevancy, let his
eyes eagerly sweep the campside for
Juanita and her BIRDS And where is the
| pen to trace that subtler instinct of hui
| man sympathy and human emulation
which, long before the don had arisen,
| had prompted this wild thing of the camp
| to gather together her cages and birds
| and set out teetly, with flame in her
! cheeks and a thrill on her tongue, to the
| llanos and sunless woods}
1t was a lonely Gay for the old don. He
| fretfully bothered with a few mountain
| insects; passed in impotence the won
| drouS mountain ferns; petulantly eX-
| amlned the rare and almost unknown vir-
| gin woods about him; and was scarcely
| even scientifically interested in huge
| maia, most hideous and harmless of
| Cuban reptiles, which Jose, a mestizos
! woodchopper of stealthy Indian blood,
| had VIGOROUSLY brought to camp, send
| ing its women shrieking to their huts for
their amulets and their beads
Even the long midday sesta failed to
| soothe him. As the shadows began to
! lengthen among the open riffs of the
forest, he piled Tomasa with plants at
| Juanita's absence and inquiries as to the
way she had taken. Jose suddenly stood
beside him, humbly offering to show the
don the way His brow clouded a little.
but he graciously accepted the Indians
guidance and was soon painting after him
INTO the shadowy jungles.
They had scarcely left the sounds of the
camp behind them when. on breaking
through the tangle of the brushwood
sklrtlng sunny opening they came face
| TO face with their quest. Laden with
cages filled with new-made captives, these,
with her own weird callings, whistlings.
plaintive and joyous trillings, were Turing
campward almost a cloud of brilliant