ou under guard."

"I am satisfied; only, let us get to work as soon as possible, and
have the business over."

"We will start to-morrow."

Marti was placed in a large room in a hotel under watch of the
constabulary, but free to order any comfort or luxury he could pay
for. On the very next morning he set out with a posse of soldiers and
visited all the resorts of his former associates in the vicinity. The
fellows had evidently suspected something, for they had made off. Their
haunts being thus disclosed, however, much of their plunder was
afterward recovered, and Marti's surrender having left them without
a leader, they retreated to distant provinces, and safety and peace
were restored to the island.

If Marti had any misgivings as to the certainty of his pardon after
this exploit, he did not show them. He returned to General Tacon's
office as cool and self-possessed as if he were running a boat-load
of spirits under the noses of the customs officers.

"You have been true to your part of the agreement," said the general,
"and I will be to mine. Here is your pardon, signed and sealed, and
this is my order on the treasury for the reward for your arrest. Sly
dog!"

"I accept the pardon with gratitude, your Excellency, but I do not need
the money. My country is poor. Let her keep it. I am rich. Never mind
how I became so. Yet, if I may claim a reward, give me a monopoly of
the fisheries on this coast. Havana will not suffer if your generosity
takes this form."

And it did not. He got the fisheries, but he spent his profits freely,
and one of the first of his benefactions was the construction of
a market that had no superior in beauty and fitness elsewhere in
the world.

The Justice of Tacon

When the parades were over, or church was out, or it was near time for
the play, one always found a dozen officers and gallants sauntering
down the Calle de Comercio, bound for the same place: the tobacco shop
of Miralda Estalez. In 1835 Miralda was known all over the town as
"the pretty cigar girl," and it was quite the thing for young sprigs
of family to lounge against her counter, tell her how charming she
was, make her light their cigarettes and sometimes take the first
puff from their cigars. All this she took with jesting good-nature,
chaffing all of her customers, commiserating with them in mocking tones
on their fractured hearts, and lamenting the poverty that confined
their purchases to the cheaper brands