Transcriber’s Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end. * * * * * VOL. 1 NO. 1 NEW YORK, MAY 7, 1898 5 CENTS STREET & SMITH Publishers. STARRY FLAG WEEKLY THRILLING STORIES OF OUR VICTORIOUS ARMY [Illustration] UNDER BLANCO’S EYE OR HAL MAYNARD AMONG THE CUBAN INSURGENTS * * * * * Starry Flag Weekly _Issued Weekly--By Subscription: $2.50 per year. Entered as Second Class Matter at the N. Y. Post Office._ STREET & SMITH, _81 Fulton St., N. Y. Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1898, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C._ No. 1. NEW YORK, May 7, 1898 Price Five Cents. _Under Blanco’s Eye_; OR, _HAL MAYNARD AMONG THE CUBAN INSURGENTS_ By DOUGLAS WELLS. * * * * * First Part. CHAPTER I. “THE ONLY AMERICAN IN HAVANA.” “Stop!” A boy of some eighteen or nineteen years rushed frantically out upon a wharf bordering the harbor of Havana. “Hold on!” Elbowing his way through the dark-skinned crowd, he reached the string-piece, now waving his arms wildly. At the top of his voice came the fervent appeal: “Don’t leave me behind!” Unheedful of the Spanish crowd about him, the boy gazed anxiously at the fast receding stern of the United States steamer Fern. That crowd was bent on mischief. It had jeered itself nearly hoarse when the little steamer left her berth. Now it saw in this shouting, gesticulating youth a closer victim of their sport. “Swim!” jeered one low-browed, dirty Spaniard. To this came an echoing shout of: “Make him swim!” “Yes! Throw the Yankee dog into the harbor. He will find company in the sailors of the Maine!” A yell went up--a yell that was partly derisive and partly defiant. It had one effect that the victim was quick to notice--it utterly drowned out his appealing shouts to those on the deck of the Fern, causing him to gasp: “Am I the only American left behind in Havana?” It looked like it. Further from the pier, nearer every moment to the entrance of Havana harbor went the Fern, the last of the United States steamers to leave Cuba’s capital city on that memorable afternoon of the ninth of April, 1898. Aboard the Fern was that sturdy American hero, General Fitzhugh Lee. Up to the last moment he had served the interests of the United States and her citizens as consul general at Havana. Now, when the state of affairs there had become intolerable, General Lee had sailed on the Fern. After indomitable efforts extending over several days, he had succeeded in shipping, as he believed, the last American in that danger-infested city. Then, and not until then, had General Lee stepped aboard the Fern. His coming had been the signal for the start. A moment later the little steamer’s prow was cutting the muddy, blood-stained waters of Havana harbor.