Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 30542 in 17 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
IN FRONT OF A SPANISH CRUISER.
BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.
"An hour's sport with a Spanish cruiser--that's what it will be," Benito Bastian said to himself.
Benito is a handsome dark-eyed Cuban boy, who lives on the little Cuban island called Ginger Key, forty miles north of the Cuban coast. The boys of Ginger Key, like their older brothers, are full of excitement just now; for occasionally a band of Cuban patriots makes its way over from Florida and goes into hiding in the thick woods, and watches its chance to land on the coast of Cuba. These hands need guides; and it is the Ginger Key boys who know the waters well, and the coast too. Benito handles his sharpie to perfection on the darkest nights and in all kinds of weather; and as to helping his countrymen, the Cuban insurgents, he feels about it just as the Boston boys felt about Bunker Hill.
"I ought to be doing something for the cause," he said to himself several months ago. "It's a pity I'm only sixteen; they may think I am too young. But I know these waters as well as any man on the key."
He looked down regretfully at his bare feet and legs, for his trousers were rolled well up. He took off his old straw hat and smiled at it; but he could not see how his brown eyes flashed, nor how handsome his brown hair looked, waving in the wind. He is tall and strong for his age, and brown as a berry--not only from the sun, but by nature.
"Yes, they'll say I'm only a boy, that's sure," he continued; "so I must have my wits about me if I want to get a chance."
"You don't get away very fast," he said to the leader, taking care to speak in a low voice. "It's ticklish work, landing men near Sagua la Grande. That's well watched."
The man looked at him curiously, surprised that this boy should know so much about his arrangements.
"I think I could draw her off long enough for you to land your men," Benito whispered.
"You?" the man exclaimed; "why, you are only a boy!" It was just as Benito expected.
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
