top of low hills on both sides of the road, where the insurgents were well protected, and he sustained severe losses without inflicting much injury upon the enemy.  So hot was the encounter that Luque withdrew and prepared to charge upon two points where the enemy were making a stand.  He held the road with one battalion, sending a detachment to the right, and another to the left.  The attack was successful.  The Spanish made a magnificent effort under withering fire, and swept Maceo’s forces before them, not, however, until they had left the field scattered with their own dead and wounded.

For some reason the cavalry had not been used.  The artillery was just coming up when the action had reached this point.  The Spanish found that the enemy had, instead of being routed, simply fallen back and taken a position on another hill, and scattered firing went on for a considerable time, while Luque prepared to attack again.  Then, against 2,000 of Maceo’s men, was directed all of Luque’s command, over 4,000 infantry, 200 cavalry, and eleven pieces of artillery.

At least half of Maceo’s army, certainly not less than 2,000 cavalry, had been moving up to Luque’s rear and came upon him, surprising him just as this second attack was being made.

For a time it was a question whether Luque’s command would not be wiped out.  They were practically surrounded by Maceo’s men, and for fully an hour and a half the fighting was desperate.  It is impossible to unravel the stories of both sides so as to arrive at a clear idea of the encounter.

When the cannonading ceased, four companies of infantry charged up the hill and occupied it before the insurgents, who had been driven out by the artillery, could regain it.  Shortly the hill on the left of the road was taken in the same way, and Luque, although at a great loss, had repelled Maceo’s attack from the rear.

The battle had lasted for a little over two hours.  Maceo had about forty of his men wounded and left four dead on the field, taking away ten others.  Twenty or more of his horses were killed.  The Spanish reported that he had 1,000 killed, the next day reduced the number to 300, and finally to the statement that “the enemy’s losses must have been enormous,” the usual phrase when the true number is humiliating.  Luque’s losses have never been officially reported, but it is variously estimated at from seventy-five to a hundred men.

The work of fiends.

The Cubans give horrible details of a battle at Paso Heal, between General Luque’s army and a division of Maceo’s forces under Bermudez.  Witnesses of the encounter claim that the Spaniards invaded the hospital and killed wounded insurgents in their beds, and that, Bermudez, in retaliation, formed a line, and shot thirty-seven Spanish prisoners.

Luque says in his report of this engagement:  “The rebels made a strong defense, firing from the tops of houses and along the fences around the city.  The Spanish vanguard, under Colonel Hernandez, attacked the vanguard, center and rear guard of the rebels in the central streets of the town, driving them with continuous volleys and fierce cavalry charges into the outskirts of the town.  Up to this point we had killed ten insurgents.”