s seemed
either too stupid or too ill-informed to be able to give trustworthy
replies to any of the questions asked, except that General Weyler had
gone back to Havana, and that the operations in the province of Pinar
del Rio were being conducted by Generals Bernal and Arolas, who, by
strict command of Weyler, were laying the entire country waste,
destroying every building of whatsoever description, churches included,
on the ground that they afforded possible places of refuge or shelter
for revolutionaries; mercilessly shooting down every man, woman, and
child found, on the plea that, not having obeyed General Weyler's
concentration order, they were contumacious rebels: that, in short,
where this host went they found smiling prosperity, and left behind them
a blood-stained, fire-blackened waste. The troops were not acting in
concert, or as one body, but in independent detachments, to each of
which was allotted the duty of covering a strip of country of a certain
width, which strip it was their task to ravage from end to end. The
detachment to which the duty of destroying Don Hermoso's property had
fallen had consisted of some three thousand infantry, a troop of
cavalry, and a battery of field artillery; and according to the story of
the prisoners it had suffered frightfully during the attack, the officer
in command having wasted his men most recklessly in his determination to
conquer at any cost--indeed, if they were to be believed, with the
exception of about half a squadron of cavalry, a few artillerymen, and
perhaps fifty men left behind to destroy the buildings, they were the
sole survivors of the attack and the pursuit.

The question which now presented itself to Jack and Carlos was: What
were they to do with their prisoners, now that they had them?--for that
they were a distinctly embarrassing possession was an indisputable fact.
In the first place, the unfortunate wretches were by this time
suffering acutely from hunger and thirst, but their captors had neither
food nor drink to give them; indeed, they had none wherewith to satisfy
their own pressing needs. Also, since all the buildings on the estate
were doubtless by this time utterly destroyed by fire, there was no
place in which to confine them; yet it would obviously be the height of
folly to set them free while their comrades were still in the
neighbourhood, for that would only mean that they would bring back those
comrades to complete the work which they