s
oppression is horrible, like a spell on you--you're all afraid to more
than whisper--that must be broken. It must! I have a good little bit
of money and I can get more. You've got to help me."

Andres clasped his hand. "That is wonderful!" His lowered exclamation
vibrated with feeling. "How can you have such nobility! I am given to
it, and Jaime and Remigio Florez and Tirso. But we are going to wait,
we think that is better; Spain shall pay us when the time comes.
Those students, eight of them, who were shot, were well known to us.
They put them against a wall by the prison and fired. You could hear
it clearly. But, when we are ready, the Spanish Volunteers--" hatred
closed his throat, drew him up rigidly. "Not yet," he insisted; "this
shall be different, forever. Perhaps your country will help us then."

Charles was increasingly impatient; he couldn't, he felt, wait, delay
his gesture for freedom. He conceived the idea that he might kill the
Captain-General of Spain in Cuba, shoot him from the step of his
carriage and cry that it was a memorial of the innocent boys he had
murdered. Andres dissuaded him; it would, he said, only make the
conditions of living more difficult, harsh, put off the other, the
final, consummation.

Below, on the promenade, the rows of gas lamps shone wanly through the
close leaves of the India laurels; there was a ceaseless sauntering
throng of men; then, from the Plaza de Armas, there was the hollow
rattat of drums, of tattoo. It was nine o'clock. The night was
magnificent, and Charles Abbott was choked by his emotions; it seemed
to him that his heart must burst with its expanding desire of heroic
good. He had left the earth for cloudy glories, his blood turned to a
silver essence distilled in ethereal honor; he was no longer a body,
but a vow, a purpose.

One thing, in a surpassing humility, he decided, and turned to Andres.
"Very well, if you think the other is best. Listen to me: I swear
never to leave Cuba, never to have a different thought or a hope,
never to consider myself at all, until you are free."

The intent face of Andres Escobar, dim in the gloom of the balcony,
was like a holy seal upon his dedication. A clatter of hoofs rose from
below--the passage of a squad of the gendarmes on grey horses, their
white coats a chalky glimmer in the night. Andres and Charles watched
them until they vanished toward the Parque Isabel; then Andres swore,
softly.

Again in his room at the