"Now let's take them off and put them in those wicker cages you made last summer, Ramon," said Isabella. "I'm sure the poor little things are tired of hanging from our clothes. They must wish to fly around once more. They will not mind being shut up in the cages for a day or two, if we give them plenty of sugar to eat."
"All right, but I wouldn't keep them shut up long enough to make pets of them," said her brother. "I cannot help believing they would rather be free."
As he said these words, there was a step on the garden walk, and a moment later a strange man stood in front of the children.
"Is your father at home?" he asked. "I have a message for him."
Ramon hurried into the house. Señor Diaz came out and spoke with the stranger in low tones. When he went back into the sitting-room he carried in his hand a piece of paper that looked perfectly blank. The stranger had disappeared again into the darkness.
"What did the children's good father do with that paper?" you ask.
He went quickly to his desk and put it under lock and key. Nothing could be done with it till the morning sun should light up the eastern sky.
If we could have watched Señor Diaz, we should have seen him go to his desk once more, take out the precious paper, and go over it with a hair pencil dipped in a bottle of colorless liquid.
After that, we should have seen Maria running with the paper to the window, where the sun's rays would dry it quickly. Lo and behold! writing began to appear which threw the whole family into a great state of excitement. These were the words:
"The U. S. warship _Maine_ has been blown up. The Americans are roused. They believe without doubt that the Spaniards are the doers of the terrible deed. Victory shall be ours at last, for the United States will now surely take our part against Spain."
That very night Maria's household were wakened by a brilliant light pouring into their windows. It came from the burning plantation where Lucia had her home. When morning dawned there was no trace of a building left on the whole place. No person was injured, however, but Lucia and her parents went to friends in Havana. The rich planter had become a poor man in a single night.
Who had set the fire? It was probably the insurgents, who had discovered that the planter was a friend of the Spaniards and was secretly working against the freedom of Cuba.