y would subject him to the penalty of death, which would
infallibly be carried out. Despite this warning, and presumably against
his own better judgment, Ruiz obeyed the orders of his superiors, and
undertook the errand. He had no safe conduct. He bore no flag of truce.
He went through no agreement between the commanding officers of the
respective sides. He went in the circumstances and manner of a spy; and
his purpose was to persuade, if possible, a Cuban officer to betray his
trust and become a traitor to his own cause.

When in these circumstances Ruiz reached Aranguren, the latter was so
distressed that it is said he burst into tears and, embracing his old
friend, exclaimed, "Why have you come? It will mean your certain death!
I cannot save you!" And such indeed was the case. Aranguren was devoted
to his friend, but still more to Cuba. Ruiz was taken before a court
martial. He made no defence. He admitted the character and purpose of
his errand. And he received the sentence of death with the fortitude of
a brave man. An attempt was made by the Spanish authorities to exploit
Ruiz as a martyr to Cuban savagery, but it recoiled upon their own
heads. It was shown that they had unworthily employed a brave and
devoted soldier in a discreditable errand, and that he had been dealt
with according to the stern but just rules of war. It was also
demonstrated that Cuban patriots were not thus to be corrupted. By a
strange turn of fate, only a few weeks later Nestor Aranguren was killed
by the Spanish during one of his daring raids against Havana. It was
said that he was betrayed by a Spaniard who had become one of his
followers for the purpose of avenging Ruiz. His body fell into the hands
of the Spanish, and, despite their former assumed wrath over the
execution of Ruiz, they treated it with all respect and interred it in
the Columbus Cemetery at Havana, close to the grave of Ruiz.

This was not the only incident of the sort. Only a few weeks after the
death of Ruiz a civilian named Morales went to the camp of Pedro Ruiz,
in the Province of Pinar del Rio, with proposals for compromise on the
basis of autonomy. He was promptly taken before a court martial, tried,
condemned, and put to death. Whether Blanco himself was responsible for
this policy of sending emissaries to the Cuban camp with proposals which
he would not venture to make openly in an accredited manner to the Cuban
government, did not appear. The presumption, becaus