Across the front of the low, board house ran a long porch. So closely framed it was in shrubbery, and so dense was the night packed around it, that there was almost the privacy of a room. The master, in his half-attire of white linen, kept up a running fire of conversation, partly in Spanish through and to the interpreter, and partly in English. Highly interested, but, for the most part, quiet, were the several laborers who shared the hospitality of the porch. Occasionally they interjected rapid exclamations and questions in Spanish. It was hard to concentrate upon Señor Govin and our conversation. The curiousness of the situation had unraveled my nerves. Never before had it seemed possible that a person could be so comparatively close to accustomed things and yet be so isolated. The whole scheme was like a bunch of dramatics grabbed from a play or torn from a copyrighted novel. Persons who are not used to prowling about the back yards and blind alleys of the world find it hard to adjust themselves to strange society, except in the broad light of day. Probably the two at the roadside camp a mile away, and the one struggling along the hilly trail with a bucketful of water, felt the impressiveness of the night as much, or more, than we who sat on the Govin porch and talked with the Govin family. It was a romantic situation until Govin, innocently desiring to please, cracked the grandeur of the night and pierced the helpless heavens by turning on the rusty voice of a battered ten-dollar phonograph. Finally, we ate our delayed supper at our own fireside. We were not yet sleepy. The food and warmth cheered us, for although the days be hot in Cuba, the nights are cold. Twenty-four hours had not acclimated us to a change of fifty degrees in the temperature with the setting of the sun. Then began our vigil. Thirty miles back of us lay Havana with its gay opera, its bright cafés, and its dirty hotels, swarming with tourists. Thirty miles back lay a world’s city, known to the world, close to the rest of the world, and familiar to the world as any other capital. Thirty miles back lay our expectations, our fancies, and our nerve. Thirty miles back lay the things we knew. This was unknown wilderness. Havana to Camp Solitude—thirty miles. [Illustration: “_A hill like a natural stairway of great, rough limestone steps._” SEE PAGE 30.] [Illustration] CHAPTER II _Your isle, which stands_ _As Neptune’s, ribbed and paled in with rocks unscalable._ —Cymbeline. [Illustration]