“They marched us along,” said the Doctor, “and I spoke to the general:  ’General, I am an American citizen, and here are my papers from Mr. Williams.’  ’They are the worst things you could have,’ he said.  ’I wish the Consul were here himself, so that I could treat him thus,’ and he struck me three times in the face.  Then he sounded the bugle calling the volunteers, and ordered us taken to the rear guard.  Of course, we knew that this meant death.  They tied us in a line with our hands pinioned.  I knew the sergeant and said to him:  ’Is it possible that you are going to kill me?’ ‘How can I help it?’ he answered.  Then the order was given and the soldiers rushed upon us with machetes.  Their knives cut our ropes as we tried to dodge the blows, and the soldiers fired two volleys at us.  The first shot grazed my head, and I dropped to the ground as though dead.  The old farm hand also threw himself to the earth.  This act saved our lives.

“The other four men who tried to fight were killed.  At the second discharge a bullet pierced my side.  When we all lay as though dead they came up and turned us over and searched our pockets—­mine first, of course, as I was better dressed than the other men.  One of the soldiers noticed that my breast moved and shouted out:  ‘This fellow is not dead yet.  Give him another blow,’ and he raised his machete and gave me a slash across the face and throat.  Then I became unconscious.”

Delgado’s father took up the story as his son left off:  “The brave young man who brought us to the place where my son was, now jumped from his horse and gave orders to the men to lift my son on the litter, as we found he was the only man still living.  We put a pillow under his head, and the two farm hands lifted the litter and carried it into the cane field.  Meanwhile the women relatives of the dead men came up and began to wail and cry.  The young man, whom we afterwards found was an insurgent leader, told them they should be quiet, as their lamentations would bring the Spanish troops upon the scene again.

“Then the litter was carried into the cane field.  This young man said:  ’You must immediately write to the American consul.  I will furnish you with a messenger, and you may rest safely in this cane field with your son.  I will put a guard of 500 men around it so that they cannot burn it, as they do when they know people are hiding in the cane.’

“For five days I was in the cane field with my son.  It rained upon us, and then I put the pillows over my son’s chest, in order to protect him.  I suffered greatly from rheumatism.  Only the young man appeared and said that General Maceo had sent a guard to escort me back to my home.  With my boy we were taken there and guard kept around our house.  The messenger came back from the Consul, and I came on to Havana to see General Weyler, who had my son brought here to the city.”

Stories of outrages on Americans that are unquestionably true might be furnished in numbers sufficient to more than fill this entire volume, but enough have been given to convince the most skeptical that the demand for intervention was justified on our own account, as well as for the sake of the people of Cuba.