sentenced to be shot by a fusillade some morning before sunrise.

Previous to execution he was confined in the military prison of Santa
Clara with thirty other insurgents, all of whom were sentenced to be
shot, one after the other, on mornings following the execution of
Rodriguez.

His execution took place the morning of the 19th of January, 1897, at a
place a half-mile distant from the city, on the great plain that
stretches from the forts out to the hills, beyond which Rodriguez had
lived for nineteen years. At the time of his death he was twenty years
old.

I witnessed his execution, and what follows is an account of the way he
went to his death. The young man's friends could not be present, for it
was impossible for them to show themselves in that crowd and that place
with wisdom or without distress, and I like to think that, although
Rodriguez could not know it, there was one person present when he died
who felt keenly for him, and who was a sympathetic though unwilling
spectator.

There had been a full moon the night preceding the execution, and when
the squad of soldiers marched from town it was still shining brightly
through the mists. It lighted a plain two miles in extent, broken by
ridges and gullies and covered with thick, high grass, and with bunches
of cactus and palmetto. In the hollow of the ridges the mist lay like
broad lakes of water, and on one side of the plain stood the walls of the
old town. On the other rose hills covered with royal palms that showed
white in the moonlight, like hundreds of marble columns. A line of tiny
camp-fires that the sentries had built during the night stretched between
the forts at regular intervals and burned clearly.

But as the light grew stronger and the moonlight faded these were stamped
out, and when the soldiers came in force the moon was a white ball in the
sky, without radiance, the fires had sunk to ashes, and the sun had not
yet risen.

So even when the men were formed into three sides of a hollow square,
they were scarcely able to distinguish one another in the uncertain light
of the morning.

There were about three hundred soldiers in the formation. They belonged
to the volunteers, and they deployed upon the plain with their band in
front playing a jaunty quickstep, while their officers galloped from one
side to the other through the grass, seeking a suitable place for the
execution. Outside the line the band still played merrily.

A few me