the Captain-General. For the Autonomists, Dr. Rafael Montoro was the
spokesman, one of the foremost orators and scholars of the
Spanish-speaking world. He had been a Cuban Senator in the Spanish
Cortes, and perhaps more than any other man in Cuba commanded the
respect and confidence of all parties, Spanish and Cuban alike. He also
pledged to Campos the unwavering support of the Autonomists in what he
believed sincerely to be the best policy for both Cuba and Spain. A
representative of the Reformists spoke to the same effect. Then Campos
responded with a frank confession that he had meditated resignation,
fearing that he had lost the united confidence of the various parties;
but that after this demonstration of loyalty, he would continue his
military and civil administration with restored hope of success in
pacifying the island.

We have called the Autonomists at this time the best friends of Campos.
It might be possible, however, to argue successfully that they were his
worst friends, or at least badly mistaken friends. It might have been
better, that is to say, for him to have persisted in retirement at that
time, instead of merely postponing the day of wrath. For his renewed
efforts either to crush or to pacify the revolutionists were vain. At
the very moment when he was gratefully listening to those pledges of
loyal support, Gomez and Maceo were pushing unrelentingly forward, not
merely through Matanzas but far into Havana province itself. And like
Israel of old, they were guided or accompanied by a pillar of fire by
night and a pillar of cloud by day. The plantations near the capital
were sources of supply for the Spanish, and they must be destroyed. It
seemed savage to doom canefields and factories to the torch. But it was
more humane to do that and thus make the island uninhabitable for the
Spaniards, than to lose myriads of lives in battle. Moreover, the
destruction of the sugar crop, then ripe for harvest, would do more
than anything else to cripple the financial resources of Spain in the
island. All Spain wanted of Cuba, said Gomez, grimly but truly, was what
she could get out of it. Therefore if she was prevented from getting
anything out of it she would no longer desire it but would let it go.

So night after night "the midnight sky was red" with the glow of blazing
canefields and factories, and day after day the tropic sun was half
obscured by rolling clouds of smoke from the same conflagrations; while
beh