Plotting in Pirate Seas Part 13

"Cuba is very rich," came the prompt reply, coupled with the grim comment, "but Cubans very poor."

"They are poor," agreed Stuart, "and in this part of the island they seem a lot poorer than in the Pinar plains, where I lived before. Why?

Here, nine out of every ten of the guarijos we've seen, live like hogs in a sty. Most of the huts we've pa.s.sed aren't fit for human beings to live in. Why is it?"

Stuart had expected, and, as it turned out, rightly, that this opening would give Vellano the opportunity to express himself on Cuban conditions as he saw them. Stuart was eager for this, for he wanted to find out where his companion stood, and hoped to find out whether he was ripe for revolt. But he was surprised at the bitterness and vehemence of the protest.

"Ah! The Rats that gnaw at the people!" Vellano cried. "The Rats that hold political jobs and grow fat! The government Rats who care for nothing except to make and collect taxes to keep the people poor! The job-holders of this political party, or that political party, or the other political party! What are they? Rats, all! Tax-Rats!

"Why do the guarijos live like hogs in a sty? The Rats ordain it. It is the taxes, all on account of the taxes. Consider! All this land you see, all undeveloped land, belonging, it may be, to only a few wealthy people, pays no tax, no tax at all. But if a man wishes to make a living, settles on the ground and begins to cultivate it, that day, yes, that hour, the owner will demand a high rent. And why will he ask this rent? Because, Young Senor, as soon as land is cultivated, the government puts a high tax on it. The Rats punish the farmers for improving the country.

"What happens? I can tell you what happens in this province of Oriente.

In the province of Camaguey, too. The small farmer finds a piece of good land. He settles on it--what you Americans call 'squatting'--and, if he is wise, he says nothing to the owner. Perhaps he will not be found out for a year or two, perhaps more, but, when he is found, he must pay a big rent and the owner a big tax. Perhaps the guarijo cannot pay. Then he must go away.

"Generally he goes. In some other corner, hidden away, he finds another piece of land. He squats on that, too, hoping that the tax-Rats may not find him. He does not cultivate much land, for he may be driven off next day. He does not build a decent house, for he may have to abandon it before the week's end.

"Suppose he does really wish to rent land, build a house and have a small plantation, and is willing to pay the rent, however high it be.

Why then, Young Senor, he will learn that it will be many years before he finds out whether the man to whom he is paying the rent is really the owner of the land. And if he wishes to buy, it is worse than a lottery.

In this part of the island no surveys have been made--except a circular survey with no edges marked--and land t.i.tles are all confused. Then the lawyer-Rats thrive."

"It's not like that near Havana," put in Stuart.

"Havana is not Cuba. Only three kinds of people live in Havana: the Rats, the tourists, and the people who live off the Rats and the tourists. They spend, and Cuba suffers.

"For the land tax, Senor, is not all! Nearly all the money that the government spends--that the Rats waste--comes from the tax on imports.

No grain is grown in Cuba, and there is no clothing industry. All our food and all our clothes are imported, and it is the guarijo who, at the last, must pay that tax. Young Senor, did you know that, per head of population, the poor Cuban is taxed for the necessities of life imported into this island three and a half times as much as the rich American is taxed for the goods entering the United States?

"Even that is not all. Here, in Cuba, we grow sugar, tobacco, pineapples, and citrus fruit, like oranges, grapefruit and lemons. Does America, which made us a republic, help us? No, Young Senor, it hurts us, hinders us, cripples us. In Hawaii, in Porto Rico, in the southern part of the United States, live our sugar, tobacco and fruit compet.i.tors. Their products enter American markets without tax. Ours are taxed. What happens? Cuba, one of the most fertile islands of the West Indies is poor. The Cuban cultivator, who is willing to be a hard worker, gives up the fight in disgust and either tries in some way to get the dollars from the Americans who come here, or else he helps to ruin his country by getting a political job."

Stuart, listening carefully to this criticism, noticed in Vellano's voice a note of hatred whenever he used the word "American." Connecting this with his own suspicion that Cecil was head of a conspiracy against the United States and that this supposed fisherman was evidently the Englishman's tool, he asked, casually:

"Then you don't think that the United States did a good thing in freeing Cuba from Spain?" he hazarded.

To the boy's surprise, his companion burst out approvingly.

"Yes, yes, a magnificent thing! But they did not know it, and they did not know why! The Americans thought they were championing an oppressed people struggling for justice. Nothing of the sort. They took the side of one party struggling for jobs against another party struggling for jobs. But the result was magnificent. Under the last American Military Governor, Leonard Wood, Cuba advanced more in two years than she had in two centuries. When the Americans went away, though, it was worse than if they had never come. Cubans did not make Cuba a republic, Americans made Cuba a republic and then abandoned us. Of course, confusion followed. And in the revolution of 1906 and other revolutions, the Americans meddled, and yet did nothing. It is idle to deny that American influence is strong here! But what does it amount to? We are neither really free, nor really possessed."

"But what do you want?" queried Stuart. "I don't seem to understand. You don't want to be a possession of Spain, you don't want to be an American colony, and you don't want to be a republic. What do you want?"

"Do I know?" came the vehement reply. "Does anyone in Cuba know? Does anyone, anywhere, know? Remember, Young Senor, the Cuban guarijo does not feel himself to be a citizen of Cuba, as an American farmer feels himself a citizen of the United States. He has been brought up under Spanish rule, and is, himself, Spanish in feeling.

"What does he know about a republic? Unless he can get a political job for himself, unless he sees the chance to be a Rat, he cares nothing about politics, but he will fight, at any time, under any cause, for any leader who will promise him a bigger price for his sugar, his tobacco or his fruit. The World War helped him, for sugar was worth gold. But now--if the Cuban wishes to say anything to America, he must do it through the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust or the Fruit Trust.

"What!" Vellano flamed out, "The United States will not answer us when we pray, nor listen when we speak? Then we will make her hear!"

Upon which, suddenly realizing that in this direct threat he might have said too much, Vellano dropped the subject. Nothing that Stuart could suggest would tempt him to say anything more.

The boy had been brought up in Cuba, and, though he had never been in this eastern part of the island, he knew that a great deal of what his companion had said was true. At the same time, he realized that Vellano had not done justice to the modern improvements in Cuba, to the extension of the railroads, the building of highways, the improvement of port facilities, the establishment of sugar refineries, the spread of foreign agricultural colonies, the improved sanitation and water supply and the development of the island under foreign capital. It was as foolish, Stuart realized, for Vellano to judge all Cuba from the wild forest-land of Oriente as it is for the casual tourist to judge the whole of Cuba from the casinos of Havana.

Cuba is not small. Averaging the width of the State of New Jersey, it stretches as far as the distance from New York to Indianapolis. Its eastern and western ends are entirely different. Originally they were two islands, now joined by a low plain caused by the rising of the sea-bottom.

Climate, soil and the character of the people vary extremely in the several provinces. High mountains alternate with low plains, dense tropical forests are bordered by wastes and desert palm-barrens. Eighty per cent of the population are Cubans--which mean Spanish and negro half-breeds with a touch of Indian blood, and of all shades of color--fifteen per cent Spanish and less than two per cent American.

Foreign colonies are numerous, though small. They are to be found in all the provinces, and exhibit these same extremes. About one-half have sunk to a desolation of misery and ruin, one-half have risen to success. As Stuart once remembered his father having said:

"I will never advise an American, with small capital, to come to Cuba.

If he will devote the same amount of work to a piece of land in the United States that he will have to give to the land here, he will be more prosperous, for what he may lose in the lesser fertility of the land, he will gain by the nearness of the market. There are scores of derelicts in this island who would have led happy and useful lives in the United States."

Crossing the hills--by a trail which threatened to shake the cart to pieces at every jolt--the two travelers reached Palenquito, and thence descended by a comparatively good road to Vesa Grande and on to Rio Seco. A mile or so out of the town, Stuart saw the gleaming lines of the railway and realized that this was to be the end of the long drive.

"I have no money for a trip to Havana!" he remarked.

"That is a pity," answered Vellano gravely, who, since he had searched the boy's pockets, knew that only a few dollars were to be found therein, "but Senor Cecil said you were to go to Havana. Therefore, you will go."

There seemed no reply to this, but Stuart noted that, at the station, the supposed fisherman produced money enough for two tickets.

"Are you coming, too?" queried Stuart, in surprise.

"Senor Cecil said that I was to see that you did not get lost on the way," came the quiet answer.

Certainly, Stuart thought, the Englishman's word was a word of power.

From Rio Seco, the train pa.s.sed at first through heavy tropical forests, such as those in the depths of which Vellano and Stuart had just driven, but these were thinned near the railroad by lumbering operations. The main line was joined a little distance west of Guantanamo. Thence they traveled over the high plateau land of Central Oriente and Camaguey, on which many foreign colonies have settled, the train only occasionally touching the woeful palm barrens which stretch down from the northern coast.

Vellano, who seemed singularly well informed, kept up a running fire of comment all the way, most of his utterances being colored by a resentment of existing conditions--for which he blamed the United States--and containing a vague hint of some great change to come.

At Ciego de Avila, where a stay of a couple of hours was made, Stuart's companion pointed out the famous _trocha_ or military barrier which had been erected by the Spaniards as a protection against the movements of Cuban insurgents, and which ran straight across the whole island.

This barrier was a clearing, half-a-mile wide; a narrow-gauge railway ran along its entire length, as did also a high barbed-wire fence. Every two-thirds of a mile, small stone forts had been built. Each of these was twenty feet square, with a corrugated iron tower above, equipped with a powerful searchlight. The forts themselves were pierced with loopholes for rifle fire and the only entrance was by a door twelve feet above ground, impossible of entrance after the ladder had been drawn up from within. The forts were connected by a telephone line. They have all fallen into ruins and are half swallowed up by the jungle, while the half mile clearing is being turned into small sugar plantations.

Beyond Ciego, the train pa.s.sed again through a zone of tropical forest lands and then dropped into the level plains of Santa Clara, the center of the sugar industry of Cuba. From there it bore northward toward Matanzas, through a belt of bristling pineapple fields.

One station before arriving at Havana, Stuart's companion, who showed signs of fatigue--which were not surprising since he had wakened at every stop that the train had made during the night to see that the boy did not get off--prepared to alight.

"You're not going on to Havana?" queried Stuart.

"I shall step off the train here after it has started," replied Vellano.

"There will be no opportunity for you to do the same until the train stops at the capital. Senor Cecil said only that I was to see that you did not get lost on the way. He said nothing about what you should do in Havana. Possibly he has plans of his own."

The train began to move.

"Adios, Young Senor," quoth the supposed fisherman, and dropped off the train.

During the long train trip, and especially when lying awake in his berth, Stuart had plenty of time to recall the events of the four days since he first met Manuel on the streets of Cap Haitien and had offered himself as a guide to the Citadel of the Black Emperor. Much had pa.s.sed since then, and this period of inaction gave the boy time to view the events in their proper perspective.

The more he thought of them, the more serious they appeared and the more Stuart became convinced that the plot was directed against United States authority in Haiti. Perhaps, also, it would attack American commercial interests in Cuba. As the train approached Havana, Stuart worked himself up into a fever of anxiety, and, the instant the train stopped, he dashed out of the carriage and into the streets feeling that he, and he alone, could save the United States from an international tragedy.