II.

A MULATTO GIRL (_continued_).

The Slave Trade--Ermina and her Lover--Panics--'Los Insurrectos' v.
'Los Voluntaries'--A Wounded Patriot--Spanish Law and Cuban
Law--The 'Mambis'--A Promise--An Alarm--All's Well that Ends Well.

You already know how, during the early stages of the Cuban revolution,
the inhabitants of Santiago were called upon to enroll themselves as
volunteers; that those who evaded the order were regarded with
suspicion, in many cases arrested, and occasionally shot after a mock
trial; that others who preferred to abandon the town, were punished for
their want of loyalty to their rulers, who confiscated their property.
My good benefactor, Don Benigno, was too old to enlist and even more
disinclined to fight against his countrymen, the rebels; so when the
cholera broke out, he made this a pretext for escaping the vigilance of
the authorities, and fled with his family and belongings to a farm on
his sugar estate. My mother would have accompanied us, but for a
circumstance which obliged her to remain in the town. Her rightful
owner, Don Vicente, had in one day lost half his fortune; the rebels
having encamped at his principal estate and utterly despoiled it. Four
hundred negroes employed on this estate had joined the revolutionists,
and as each slave was valued, on the average, at five hundred dollars,
the loss which Don Vicente sustained may be easily estimated. To provide
against fresh losses, Don Vicente determined to sell all that still
remained to him, and embark with his family for a more peaceful country.
He hoped to realise a large amount from the sale of his town slaves, and
as my mother represented no insignificant item in this valuable
property, she was, of course, included in the list of vendibles. I was
in despair!

'Tunicu, del alma!' said I to my lover, 'if you are as devoted to me as
you profess to be, buy--borrow--beg my beloved parent; but don't let her
fall into strange hands!' My dread lest she should become the property
of an utter stranger, drove me to this appeal.

Tunicu was equal to the occasion, as he always was; whether with the
same disappointing result in view, I could not tell.

'Ermina de mi corazon!' he replied, 'I am not in a position to buy your
mother. Don Benigno has already borrowed her and must now return her. To
beg her is out of the question. But I think I have a more practical
plan. It may not agree with the laws of this country, and it mu