"Ha! are you telling the truth!" burst from the veteran's lips, and he half raised himself from his cot. "Don't stain your dying soul with a lie." "As Heaven hears me, I speak the truth. I do not love Sherwood, as I said before; yet let me confess that he told the truth when he said I and Mazenas were defrauding him out of his uncle's estate." Nocolo turned to Howard. "Take the papers from my pocket; they will help you to bring Mazenas to justice. Ha! ha! he must not escape! He must not escape! Promise me you will hunt him down--promise!" "I promise," responded Howard, readily, and as the words were uttered the captain fainted. The attendants rushed up, but could do little for him. Half an hour later he was dead. Captain Nocolo's confession, and a reading of the papers found upon his person, produced a great change in General Corona. He asked for a drink to stimulate him, and then called Howard closer. "Señor Sherwood, I have deeply wronged you; I have also wronged my daughter," he said, brokenly. "Would to Heaven I had had my eyes opened before! But now, now----" His voice broke, and he could not continue. "It is not too late to make amends," said Howard. "I will procure the best physician in the city to attend you, and I will begin the search for Estella----" "Yes! yes! save her! Dios!" The general gasped for breath in his excitement. "You do not know all. I trusted Mazenas in everything. He has possession of many of my private papers, and should I die he will come into possession of all my property, and Estella will be left a beggar, unless he forces her to marry him, and he has my written permission to do even that! Sherwood--Howard--if you really love my daughter, save her! Do not allow that vile wretch to carry out his base designs!" CHAPTER XXXIV. "FORWARD, FOR CUBA AND FOR JUSTICE!" When Howard Sherwood left General Corona's side he felt a strange lightness at the heart. At last he had succeeded in placing himself in a proper light before his sweetheart's father; henceforth the two would be warm friends. Yet there was no time now to think over this satisfactory turns of affairs. The old man was seriously, if not fatally, wounded, while Estella, the idol of both of their hearts, was in the power of that exposed villain, Lieutenant Mazenas. From the stern but now broken-spirited general the young war correspondent obtained the particulars of where he had left his daughter in the lieutenant's charge. Then he lost no time in sending for the best physician in the captured city. This gentleman soon arrived, and made an immediate examination of the sufferer. "The wounds are very serious," he said. "Whether they will prove fatal or not depends upon the man's constitution." Tomasso had escaped, as had Cara, and both now set to work to nurse their master, so he was assured of the best care during Howard's absence.