Accordingly, one evening Mr. Hinton, Marto, and Ben left Havana secretly. By travelling at night, and lying concealed during the day in the huts of natives, and sometimes in the woods, they reached the outskirts of the province of Puerto Principe. Here, at the little village in which Marto was born, thirty natives joined them. Marto was elected captain of the band. Feeling somewhat secure, on account of their numbers, the band travelled through the country by day, taking the most direct route for Maceo's camp. But one morning they were suddenly surrounded by an overwhelming force of Spanish soldiers. With desperate courage, Captain Marto, Ben, and some twenty-five men cut their way out of the cordon of soldiers and sought safety in flight. It was not until the Spaniards gave up the chase that any one noticed that Mr. Hinton was not with the party. Poor Ben was in a frenzy, and, but for Captain Marto and a couple of men restraining him by force, would have rushed back to the scene of the conflict to seek for his father. Wiser counsel prevailed, however, and towards evening a man who joined the party brought comparative happiness to Ben by the report that he had watched from the woods a party of Spanish soldiers marching along with an American prisoner in their midst. The description of the prisoner tallied so closely with that of Mr. Hinton as to leave no doubt of his identity. Then Marto, who loved Mr. Hinton as a brother, had determined that, at whatever cost, his American friend must be rescued. "Why," he had said to Ben, "I dare not go to Maceo without him, and I would not if I could. Tho General is expecting him, and will give him a command as soon as he arrives at the camp." "Which," Ben had answered, gloomily enough, "will never be." "Which," Marto had retorted, somewhat testily, "must and will be." Two days after the fight they located the fort which was the headquarters of the soldiers who had attacked them, and it was this Ben and Captain Marto were watching when our story opens. The band had spent three days in the neighborhood, but as yet had not even succeeded in letting the prisoner know that his friends had not totally deserted him. The fort was a very rude affair, the walls being constructed of two thicknesses of logs with earth packed between. An earthen embankment ran around the inner side of the walls, and at such a height that when the soldiers appeared on it their bodies from the waist up offered a splendid target to an enemy. Some two hundred and fifty men formed the garrison, and they were quartered in a huge two-storied log barracks in the centre of the enclosed ground. In front of the barracks, and about twenty feet from it, was a small hut, in which Ben and Captain Marto, by the aid of the field-glass, had learnt Mr. Hinton was confined.