Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/97

 staff, the Madrid papers state, is to be Gen. Murillo, who is now in this country—in this city, if I mistake not. He poses as a diplomat and is the head of the spy bureau. Of the other leading Spanish officers in Cuba, they are of the usual foreign-service character. Some veterans, some young and inexperienced, seeking to win laurels in this war, a few Spanish noblemen, whom the exigencies of the family purse have forced into the army. By the way, attached to the new captain-general's staff, I learn there is a young American, a sugar planter. His name, I am told, was Felton, but he changed it to Alvarez. More Spanish, you see."

Felton! A question is on Ashley's tongue, when the utter absurdity of connecting Ralph Felton's identity with that of a young Cuban planter occurs to him and he refrains.

"Well, Don Manada, I am obliged to you for the half-hour you have accorded me, and I only hope your words will have as convincing an effect on the readers of the Hemisphere as they have had on me."

"Thank you, Senor Ashley. I shall ever be pleased to meet you when your duties may oblige you to seek one of the Cuban revolutionary party. Adios."

"Well," remarks the interviewer to himself, as he stops a moment to strengthen his memory by a fresh Havana, "if my friend of the bleached mustachios is not a rainbow chaser of the latest approved political character, Gen. Truenos and the Spanish army—and navy, too—have considerable work cut out for them in the vicinity of the Caribbean Sea. Hello!" he exclaims, staring at a graceful figure that is crossing Twenty-third Street in his direction. "If that isn't Miss Louise Hathaway of Raymond, Vt., my memory for faces is entirely destroyed."