Trooper Tales — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE VOICE IN THE FOURTH CELL. Back from the coast and high among the hills is the little village of Manati—hid away among the hills of white rock on the island of Porto Rico. When the great guns stormed and roared in the harbor of San Juan, fifty miles away, only the faintest reverberations were borne back to this tiny village. When the white Sibley tents of Uncle Sam’s soldiers dotted the rolling land outside the town, naked children played in the streets and men and women starved just the same in the prison. There are thick mahogany bars on the fourth cell of the Spanish prison at Manati. Look through them to- - day and in the half-light you will see two very wonder- ful eyes. There are no such eyes back in the States. You may find orbs like them among the fairest of Spain’s fair women, but few will there be so depthless, great and dark. They speak, laungh—they charm you so that you can see naught but them. You cannot tell whether it is the expression of knavery or the spirituelle light which charms you more. You pause before them. If any Spanish comes to you that moment you will speak. Then. gradually in the dimness you will perceive the rest of Juan Tosto’s face. Eomicbooks. co