few more
danzas have been played, a shutter of the grated window is seen to open,
a white hand with a white handkerchief flutters approvingly between the
iron bars, and a significant flower is offered for the acceptance of him
whom it may most concern.

Tunicu takes a friendly interest in my affaire d'amour, and gives me the
benefit of his experience in such matters.

In the carnival season, and on certain fiestas, I visit my Caridad, in
company with a dozen Pollo friends, amongst whom are Tunicu and Bimba,
and we bring with us a full band of black musicians, bearing ordinary
stringed instruments. Our visit is paid in broad daylight, but we are
masked, and so disguised that paterfamilias cannot recognise his guests;
he is, however, satisfied as regards our respectability, when my good
friend Tunicu privately reveals his name. At the inspiring tones of La
Danza some lady neighbours flock to the scene, and follow us and our
swarthy instrumentalists into our host's reception-room, which is
entered direct from the street by a huge door. Then a dance is
extemporised. The fascinating step of La Danza Criolla lends itself to a
little secret love-making, and with a partner like the graceful Cachita
(to whom alone I disclose myself when my turn comes to visit her house),
I feel in the seventh heaven! But dancing at twelve o'clock in the day,
with a tropical sun blazing in at the windows and open doors, and a room
full of excited dancers, merits some more substantial reward, and in the
pauses of the danza, our hospitable host invites us into his spacious
comedor, where refreshments in the shape of champagne, English bottled
ale, cafe noir, and dulces, are lavishly dispensed.

Report, which in Cuba travels like a tornado, and distorts like a convex
mirror, poisons the mind of Cachita's parent, Don Severiano, and one
sultry afternoon, Cachita's black maid, Gumersinda, brings me a
billet-doux from her young mistress, which fills me with alarm. Don
Severiano knows all--more than all--and has resolved to separate us by
removing Cachita to one of his sugar estates, eight leagues from town.
For some weeks I hear nothing of her whereabouts, but at last one of Don
Severiano's black mule-drivers halts before my door. He tells me that
Cachita and her family are staying at La Intimidad, a sugar estate; and
after searching among his mule's complicated trappings, he produces a
missive from his young mistress. Absence has affected Cachita, a