ackened tiles. The windows reached from
sidewalk to roof and were grated heavily, the doors oak and clenched
with great nail heads. Santiago, Santiago at last, after so many days of
sailing, of marching, of countermarching, and of fighting.

Here we were in the city at last, riding in, hoofs clattering, sabres
rattling, saddles creaking, and suddenly a great wave of exultation came
over us all. I know the General felt it. I know the last trooper of the
escort felt it. There was no thought of humanitarian principles then.
The war was not a "crusade," we were not fighting for Cubans just then,
it was not for disinterested motives that we were there sabred and
revolvered and carbined. Santiago was ours--was ours, ours, by the sword
we had acquired, we, Americans, with no one to help--and the Anglo-Saxon
blood of us, the blood of the race that has fought its way out of a
swamp in Friesland, conquering and conquering and conquering, on to the
westward, the race whose blood instinct is the acquiring of land, went
galloping through our veins to the beat of our horses' hoofs.

Every trooper that day looked down from his saddle upon Cuban and
Spanish soldier as from a throne. Even though not a soldier, it was
impossible not to know their feeling, glorying, arrogant, the fine,
brutal arrogance of the Anglo-Saxon, and we rode on there at a gallop
through the crowded streets of the fallen city, heads high, sabres
clattering, a thousand iron hoofs beating out a long roll--triumphant,
arrogant conquerors.

At the Plaza we halted and dismounted. The Cathedral was here, the Cuban
and Spanish clubs and the Governor's Palace, a rather unimposing affair
all on one floor, with the architectural magnificence of a railway
station of the French provinces. The General and the generals went in
and crowded the hall of audience, very clinquant with its black and
white floor, glass chandeliers, long mirrors and single gilded center
table. Here for an hour deputations were received. The Chief of Police,
Leonardo Ras y Rodriguez, the ex-Governor, and last of all and most
imposing, Monsignor Francisco Saenz de Urturi, the Archbishop, in his
robes, purple cap and gold chain, followed by his suite. Him, General
Shafter, came forward to meet, and the two shook hands under the tawdry
chandelier. It was a strange enough sight. By many and devious and
bloody ways had the priest and the soldier come to meet each other on
that day.

But it was drawing to