In the first year of his rule there was a young Creole girl, of surpassing beauty and modesty, of the name of Miralda Estalez. She was an orphan of seventeen, and kept a cigar store, which her beauty and grace made very popular with the young men of Havana. Miralda, like all proper heroines of fiction or fairy stories, was good as well as beautiful, and although many of the young bloods sighed for her, her glance fell with favor only on a handsome but, of course, poor and deserving young man, of the name of Pedro Mantenez. Pedro was a boatman, which is a most romantic and fitting occupation for an impoverished but righteous hero. He was more than this. By his wit and sagacity--which as we have seen failed to line his coffers, but if they had done so he would have been out of drawing in this affecting picture, since he would no longer have been poor but deserving--he was a leader among the other boatmen and beloved by all. The records of his noble and self-sacrificing deeds would have filled a volume as large as an unabridged dictionary. Miralda loved Pedro, and Pedro loved Miralda, and all was going as merry as a marriage bell, when entered the villain, a famous roué of the name of Count Almonte, who liked Miralda's cigars and cast melting glances at Miralda herself, but all in vain, because, as we have said, Miralda was good as well as beautiful. Finding that he would have to do something more substantial than make eyes, the worthy count offered Miralda a costly present which so affected her that she fainted, not with joy, but with horror. Then she ordered the count from her shop, but he refused to go and continued to hang around and buy her wares. Next the fine count offered her money and lands and rich clothes and what not, but the pure-minded young girl righteously spurned his offer. Acting quite in character the count then decided to kidnap her. His plans were ingenious, but in order to gain popularity for Tacon it was necessary that not far from this point he should get into the story.