"To another prison," Molina's voice said close to Tyler, "or a place of execution."

"What did you do?"

"Offended the sensitive Guardia, allowed visitors, refused to permit torture, forgot to say my morning prayers. They resent not berg taken seriously. Or for whatever reason, here we are, carried off in the dead of night. I asked Tavalera where he's sending us; he wouldn't tell me. I said, "The Americans will be missed, you know." He said, "How can that be? They were never here."

Jmelia could see the Morro and La Cabafia from the hotel suite's bedroom window: bleak walls in sunlight, way over there beyond the red tile roofs of the Old City and across the channel to the Gulf. Ironclad Spanish warships were now anchored in the harbor, with the U.S. Navy supply ship Fern among them. It would sail this evening with Fitzhugh Lee, the American members of the consulate staff, most of the correspondents and Amelia's friend Lorraine Regal. By tomorrow, Rollie had said earlier, everyone who was going would be gone, including Miss Amelia Brown. He said, "I'll miss you, cher." Indicating that he wasn't leaving just yet. Amelia didn't tell him she wasn't either. There would be no reason to tell him anything; when the time came she'd simply vanish.

Boudreaux, stretched out on the bedspread fully clothed except for his suit jacket, was catching up on the latest American newspapers to reach the island. The New York paper he held in front of him displayed the headline WAR SEEMS CLOSE AT HAND. The paper lying next to him announced HOSTILITIES NOT FAR OFF.

She heard him say from behind the newspaper, "What it comes down to, the limited form of autonomy Spain offered is not acceptable to the Cubans, or to the Spanish either, the ones living here. This writer has it on good authority that sometime this week McKinley will ask Congress to allow him to use military force to bring about a peaceful settlement. Don't you love the way that's worded? The next step will be a declaration of war against Spain, I'll say within two weeks, and that will be that. Anyone still here had better get out quick."

"Unless," Amelia said, "one has his own army."

"I'll get by. I'll hold off the mambis or pay tribute to them if I have to, until the United States Army comes storming ashore. I have a hunch it will be near Havana. I hope close enough I can see the show from here. Watch the cannonade with a glass of the house tin to and a good cigar. I'll send you a wire when it's safe to return."

"Neely hasn't left," Amelia said.

"Still sniffing around my lady friend?"

"He went off to interview one of the insurgent generals, Islero."

"He's crazy. I meant Neely, but they both are, for that matter. Islero's an animal, he'll make gumbo out of Neely and have him for supper. He's a perfect example of the kind of terrorist we'll have running things if we let the Cubans gain control. Weyler's a saint compared to that ferocious nigger."

Amelia, arms folded in her white satin robe, turned from the window. "The Chicago Times arrived with Neely's story about the marine being held and the military censor burned every copy. They're saying no such person is in El Morro, La Cabafia or anywhere else. The marine left San Ambrosio weeks ago on his own and they had no reason to stop him. Except Neely saw Virgil Webster at the Morro and spoke to him for more than an hour. It cost him a bottle of bourbon."

"He isn't there," Rollie said, eyes holding straight ahead on the newspaper page.

"Neely saw him."

"Yes, but-that was the other day. You were there, didn't you see the marine?"

Amelia hesitated. How did he know that?

"The officer would only allow Neely to talk to him."

Still behind the newspaper Rollie said, "I wondered why you didn't tell me you went there."

"I thought I should wait till Neely wrote his story," Amelia said, "before I started talking about it, risk some other correspondent filing the story first."

He seemed to accept that.

"You waited, huh? Didn't see anyone?"

She said, "No, I didn't," without hesitation this time. She came over to the bed, a big four-poster, and stretched out next to Rollie, there in profile behind his newspaper. "Do you know where he is now?" Amelia waited.

It took Boudreaux several moments to say, "Who?" "The marine."

"If this suite were across the hall and you were looking out the window," Boudreaux said, "you'd see an old star-shaped fortress at the south end of the harbor, and I mean old. It even has a drawbridge. The place is called Ataros, and that's where they're holding him."

"Why?" Amelia said.

She watched him concentrating on a news item to make her wait-something he'd been doing almost the entire year they'd been together. She wondered what the satisfaction was in making her repeat herself. "Rollie?" "What?"

"Why is he being held?"

"The marine? They believe he's a spy."

"That's impossible. He didn't leave the ship till he was blown off the deck."

"Cher, I'm not saying he's a spy, they are."

"How'd you find out where he is?"

"I was asking about the two that brought the horses. Remember? Charlie Burke and the other one?"

"Ben Tyler," Amelia said.

"That's right, Tyler," Boudreaux said, turning his head to look right at her for the first time, "the cowboy. I asked Lionel Tavalera-you remember Lionel, that Civil Guard officer? Tall for a Spaniard and fairly good-looking if you don't mind them more than a bit swarthy."

"The way I remember him," Amelia said, "is on the station platform at Benavides."

"That's right, when he shot those two boys. My Lord, but that must've been an awful shock to your system; you'd only left New Orleans a few days before. That's why I want to get you away from here, before there's a chance of your being exposed to any more violence. Anyway, I asked Lionel if they were still holding the cowboy and the old man, as I'd been out in the country awhile and had lost track. I remember they were in all the papers when the cowboy shot that officer and they were under investigation of aiding the enemy, running guns or some such activity. We came back from the estate and I don't recall reading any more about them; it was all the Naval Court of Inquiry and how their investigation was coming along. I said to Lionel, "We're in the middle of negotiating for a string of mustangs and you throw the horse traders in prison. What am I suppose to do now, I have the horses?" He got a kick out of that. He said, "Keep the horses if you want them." By the way, that dun you were riding last week, in the country? That's the cowboy's; I didn't buy that one, but I guess it's milxe now."

He turned back to the newspaper he was still holding upright in front of him.

"Rollie?"

He made her wait a few moments before finally saying, "What?"

"You haven't answered my question," Amelia said, in no hurry, never letting her irritation show. "I asked how you found out about the marine, where he is."

"And I told you, he's in Atars, that old fort."

"You found out from the Civil Guard officer?"

"Yeah, Tavalera."

"Well, what happened to the cowboy and his partner? You said you were asking about the two that brought the horses?"

"Charlie Burke, the old man," Boudreaux said, looking at the paper as he spoke, "came down with a serious case of dysentery, if you'll pardon my saying so, and wore himself out sitting on the bucket. Lionel says he's buried in the Colon cemetery."

"And what happened to the cowboy?"

Boudreaux turned his head for the second time to look right at her.

"Tyler? He's hanging on."

"Where do they have him?"

"In Ataros, with the marine. Lionel says he'll be there till they locate the shipment of guns he brought, and then he'll be in La Cabafia the rest of his life." Boudreaux turned to the paper, but then turned back again to Amelia. "Lionel says that's if they don't send him to Africa or shoot him."