Arkwright laughed incredulously.

"Certainly not," he said; "you would go there as a private citizen, as
a tourist to look on and observe. Spain is not seeking complications
of that sort. She has troubles enough without imprisoning United States
senators."

"Yes; but these fevers now," persisted Stanton, "they're no respecter
of persons, I imagine. A United States senator is not above smallpox or
cholera."

Arkwright shook his head impatiently and sighed.

"It is difficult to make it clear to one who has not been there," he
said. "These people and soldiers are dying of fever because they are
forced to live like pigs, and they are already sick with starvation. A
healthy man like yourself would be in no more danger than you would be
in walking through the wards of a New York hospital."

Senator Stanton turned in his armchair, and held up his hand
impressively.

"If I were to tell them the things you have told me," he said warningly,
"if I were to say I have seen such things--American property in flames,
American interests ruined, and that five times as many women and
children have died of fever and starvation in three months in Cuba as
the Sultan has massacred in Armenia in three years--it would mean war
with Spain."

"Well?" said Arkwright.

Stanton shrugged his shoulders and sank back again in his chair.

"It would either mean war," Arkwright went on, "or it might mean the
sending of the Red Cross army to Cuba. It went to Constantinople, five
thousand miles away, to help the Armenian Christians--why has it waited
three years to go eighty miles to feed and clothe the Cuban women and
children? It is like sending help to a hungry peasant in Russia while a
man dies on your doorstep."

"Well," said the senator, rising, "I will let you know to-morrow.
If it is the right thing to do, and if I can do it, of course it must
be done. We start from Tampa, you say? I know the presidents of all
of those roads and they'll probably give me a private car for the trip
down. Shall we take any newspaper men with us, or shall I wait until I
get back and be interviewed? What do you think?"

"I would wait until my return," Arkwright answered, his eyes glowing
with the hope the senator's words had inspired, "and then speak to a
mass-meeting here and in Boston and in Chicago. Three speeches will be
enough. Before you have finished your last one the American warships
will be in the harbor of Havana."

"Ah, youth, youth!" said