te. Your hus--another--has hated me. Your
husband is--is--likely to be absent for some time. You will require
a protector. I have the honor to offer myself. I throw myself at the
feet of the loveliest lady in Cuba. I tell her of the love that for
the past year has turned my life to torture. I will be her companion,
her adorer, only--ha! You smile! It is not possible you care for
me? It is joy too great. Senora! Isabella! Can it be?"

"And you never suspected it before?"

The face was white, the lips twitched, but the smile remained. The
woman cast down her eyes--what star-bright eyes they were!--then
slowly opened her arms. With a roaring laugh Gonzales strode across
the room. The laugh changed to a gurgling cry as he placed his hands
upon her waist. His hand went to his sword, but fumbled; his knees
shook; then he fell backward at full length, with his heart's blood
pulsating from a dagger-wound. The wife of Doctor Diaz picked up the
key that had fallen from his fingers, unlocked the door, and returned
to her home alone.

The Courteous Battle

In the bay where more than three and a half centuries later the Spanish
fleet was to be destroyed the don once fought the enemy with different
result. It was in 1538, in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, that the
battle occurred,--Santiago of sad memory, with its shambles, where
insurgents were shot by platoons; with its landings, where slaves were
unloaded at night and marched thence to the plantations, like mules and
cattle; with its Morro, connected by wells and traps with caves in the
rock beneath, where bodies of men mysteriously done to death slipped
away on the tide. A French privateer had appeared before the town,
demanding ransom or surrender. Luckily for Santiago, a Spanish caravel
had arrived a few days before, under command of Captain Diego Perez,
and this gallant sailor offered to go out and defend the town. His
ship was attacked as soon as it came within range of the enemy's guns,
and, turning so as to deliver an effective fire, he gave as good as
he got. All that day the people of the town heard the pounding of
the brass pieces and saw the smudge of powder against the blue to
the south, yet at the fall of evening little damage had been done:
the ships lay too far apart, and the aim on both sides was ridiculous.

Each commander had seen enough of his adversary to respect him,
however, and moved by a common impulse they raised white flags,
declared for