ned a corner they were
astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as
if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather
jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The
cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute,
lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were
the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror,
and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.

Police Activity in Humacao

For three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto
Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here,
but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier
because one needed less food and clothes, and they were furnished
by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented
slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on
the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was
to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days,
however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that
the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a
member of his master's family, rather than a dependent; that the two
were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side
by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking
the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany,
and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.

In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing
was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was
liable to result in having one's head snipped off by a machete; but to
be robbed of one's machete, or of one's jug of rum, or of one's only
trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active
as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running
down--or walking down--these outlaws. It is said that the detectives
were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises,
with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests
or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he
met them in the street. The thief always escaped, either through the
incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.

But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police
began to chafe beneath the public cr