ncanny. The three lads
found a hiding-place in the Falaco vegas, among a vagrom populace
of brigands, runaway slaves, and wreckers, and there for several
weeks they supported themselves by hunting, fishing, gambling, even
working a little when sore pressed. Better if they had been left
alone to live out their lives there. If useless, they at least were
harmless. But, no; the majesty of the law again asserted itself. They
were caught by a company of soldiers and marched back to Havana. Their
protector and friend, the bishop, was dead. Again they were laden with
chains and returned to the arsenal to work out some months of penal
servitude. Their natures seemed to change in a day. To them Spaniards
and Cubans now stood for tyranny and injustice. They did not understand
their imprisonment as a correction: it was an act of oppression, and
how were they to know that it would not last for the remainder of their
lives? Every waking moment from the time of their second arrest they
gave to plots for liberty and vengeance. The escape came presently. It
seemed as if walls and bars were not made that could restrain them.

Two days after this last escape the country-side was stirred with
horror, for just before dawn a hamlet near Guanes was burned, and
when the neighbors, attracted by the flame and smoke seen above the
tree-tops, arrived on the ground they found the gashed bodies of the
inhabitants lying about on the gore-sodden earth. The quickness, the
secrecy of the act were terrifying. All sorts of fantastic reports
were spread about the province, especially after the massacre and
the burning had been repeated in a second village--and a third--and
a fourth. The vega was in a panic. The people went from place to
place only in armed bands. The Vuelta Abajo was completely cowed, and
sentries patrolled every settlement. It was reported that the murders
had been committed by three giants who cut down men, horses, and cattle
as they stalked across the country, and whose weapons were charmed,
so that they always struck a vital spot, no matter how carelessly
they were aimed. The three monsters were of vast strength and horrible
countenance; they climbed tall cliffs as cats climb fences, and leaped
chasms fifty feet across as other men skip over gutters.

A cave near Cape San Antonio that the aborigines had chambered for
tombs was their reputed hiding-place, where they also worshipped
their master, Satan, with fantastic ceremonies, and s