en to steam out of Sagua la
Grande harbour.

When at length, by the exercise of illimitable patience, Jack succeeded
in persuading his friends to believe that their troubles were over, and
had induced them to settle down in peace and comfort aboard the yacht,
and also to ease their aching hearts by telling him what they had
undergone since that day when they so blithely parted from him at the
railway station at Havana, it was a really heartrending story of cruel
oppression and shameful, irresponsible tyranny to which he felt himself
obliged to listen. There is no need to give the full details here; it
is sufficient to simply state that upon their arrival at Bejucal, the
first station beyond Santiago, they were accosted by a sergeant, who
ordered them to leave the train, and who, with the assistance of a
couple of files of soldiers, conveyed them back to Havana by goods train
late that same night, marching them all off to La Jacoba prison about
three o'clock the next morning, where each of them was confined in a
separate cell. Later in the day--that is to say, about eleven o'clock
in the morning--Don Hermoso was visited by a file of soldiers, who
informed him that the governor demanded his presence, and roughly
commanded him to follow them. Having obeyed this command, the Don
presently found himself in a kind of office, and confronted with
Alvaros, who ordered the two guards to leave him alone with their
prisoner. Then, this having been done, Alvaros informed Don Hermoso
that, in consequence of certain information supplied to the Government,
his house had been searched during his absence, and sufficient
treasonable correspondence found therein to send the entire family to
the penal settlements for life. Next he reminded Don Hermoso that he
had on a certain occasion paid him and his family the compliment of
proposing for the hand of Dona Isolda, and that the Don had seen fit to
reject the proposal with scorn and contumely; yet such, he said, was his
generous and forgiving nature that he was quite willing not only to
overlook that affront, but also to secure the pardon of Don Hermoso and
his family for their treason to the Spanish Government, if the said Don
Hermoso would now withdraw his refusal and give his consent to his
daughter's marriage with him, Don Sebastian Alvaros, a scion of one of
the most noble families in Old Spain. Don Hermoso's reply to this
suggestion was the repetition of a categorical and uncompro