



Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVII.--NO. 866. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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[Illustration]

CRISTOBAL THE CATALAN.

BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.


A cell in the great Morro Castle of Havana was a strange place for a boy
of fourteen; but there sat young Cristobal Nunez on the cold stone
floor, his face hidden in his hands, and bitter tears trickling between
his fingers. He was a small boy for fourteen, and not dark, like the
Cubans, but fair as any sunburnt American boy.

He was not alone in the cell, for it was a great damp vault twenty feet
wide by a hundred feet long, with an arched roof of stone, the lower
part of a storehouse standing just within the outer wall of the
fortress. He was only one of the 108 political prisoners confined in
that unhealthy vault, where was not a cot for them to lie upon, nor a
chair or bench to sit upon.

"Cheer up, my son," said a well-dressed elderly gentleman, one of his
fellow-prisoners, stooping beside him, and laying his hand kindly on
Cristobal's shoulder; "these dark days must have an end; and tears, at
any rate, will do no good. You are young to be engaged in this
business."

"I am not engaged in this business, señor," Cristobal quickly answered,
brushing his hand across his