The second evening brought O'Reilly and Miss Evans safely through, and at news of the expedition's success a pack-train was made ready to go to its assistance. Norine's letter from the New York Junta was read, and the young woman was warmly welcomed. One of the better huts was vacated for her use, and the officers of the provisional Government called to pay their respects.
There were other Americans in Cubitas, as O'Reilly soon discovered. During his first inspection of the village he heard himself hailed in his own language, and a young man in dirty white trousers and jacket strode toward him.
"Welcome to our city!" the stranger cried. "I'm Judson, Captain of Artillery, Departmento del Oriente; and you're the fellow who came with that quinine lady, aren't you?"
O'Reilly acknowledged his identity, and Judson grinned:
"The whole camp is talking about her and those mangoes. Jove! It's a wonder she didn't die of fright. Something tells me you're Irish. Anyhow, you look as if you'd enjoy a scrap. Know anything about artillery?"
"Nothing whatever."
"I'm sorry. We need gunners. Still, you know as much as the rest of us did when we came."
"I'm not a fighter," Johnnie told him. "I'm here on—other business."
Captain Judson was plainly disappointed. Nevertheless, he volunteered to assist his countryman in any way possible. "Have you met the old man," he inquired—"General Gomez?"
"No, I'd like to meet him."
"Come along, then; I'll introduce you. This is about the right time of day for it; he'll probably be in good humor. He has dyspepsia, you know, and he's not always pleasant."
It was nearly sundown; the eastern slopes were in shadow, and supper was cooking. As the two men passed down the wide street between its rows of bohios the fragrance of burning fagots was heavy in the air—that odor which is sweet in the nostrils of every man who knows and loves the out-of-doors. To O'Reilly it was like the scents of Araby, for his hopes were high, his feet were light, and he believed his goal was in sight.
Gen. Maximo Gomez, father of patriots, bulwark of the Cuban cause, was seated in a hammock, reading some letters; O'Reilly recognized him instantly from the many pictures he had seen. Gomez was a keen, wiry old man; the color of his swarthy, sun-bitten cheeks was thrown into deeper relief by his snow-white mustache and goatee. He looked up at Judson's salute and then turned a pail of brilliant eyes, as hard as glass, upon O'Reilly. His was an irascible, brooding face; it had in it something of the sternness, the exalted detachment, of the eagle, and O'Reilly gained a hint of the personality behind it. Maximo Gomez was counted one of the world's ablest guerrilla leaders; and indeed it had required the quenchless enthusiasm of a real military genius to fuse into a homogeneous fighting force the ill-assorted rabble of nondescripts whom Gomez led, to school them to privation and to render them sufficiently mobile to defy successfully ten times their number of trained troops. This, however, was precisely what the old Porto-Rican had done, and in doing it he had won the admiration of military students. He it was, more than any other, who bore the burden of Cuba's unequal struggle; it was Gomez's cunning and Gomez's indomitable will which had already subjugated half the island of Cuba; it was Gomez's stubborn, unflagging resistance which was destined to shatter for all time the hopes of Spain in the New World.
With a bluntness not unkind he asked O'Reilly what had brought him to Cuba, Then before the young man could answer he gestured with a letter in his hand, saying:
"Major Ramos gives you splendid credit for helping him to land his expedition, but he says you didn't come to fight with us. What does he mean?"
When O'Reilly explained the reason for his presence the old fighter nodded.
"So? You wish to go west, eh?"
"Yes, sir. I want to find Colonel Lopez."
"Lopez? Miguel Lopez?" the general inquired, quickly.
"I believe that's his name—at any rate the Colonel Lopez who has been operating in Matanzas Province, You see, he knows the whereabouts of my—friends."
"Well, you won't have to look far for him." General Gomez's leathery countenance lightened into a smile. "He happens to be right here in Cubitas." Calling Judson to him, he said: "Amigo, take Mr. O'Reilly to Colonel Lopez; you will find him somewhere about. I am sorry we are not to have this young fellow for a soldier; he looks like a real man and—quite equal to five quintos, eh?"
It was the habit of the Cubans to refer to their enemies as quintos—the fifth part of a man! With a wave of his hand Gomez returned to his reading.
As Judson led his companion away he said: "When you have finished with Lopez come to my shack and we'll have supper and I'll introduce you to the rest of our gang. You won't get much to eat, for we're short of grub; but it's worse where Lopez comes from."
Col. Miguel Lopez, a handsome, animated fellow, took O'Reilly's hand in a hearty clasp when they were introduced; but a moment later his smile gave way to a frown and his brow darkened.
"So! You are that O'Reilly from Matanzas," said he. "I know you now, but—I never expected we would meet."
"Esteban Varona told you about me, did he not?"
The colonel inclined his head.
"I'm here at last, after the devil's own time. I've been trying every way to get through. The Spaniards stopped me at Puerto Principe—they sent me back home, you know. I've been half crazy. I—You—" O'Reilly swallowed hard. "You know where Esteban is? Tell me-"
"Have you heard nothing?"
"Nothing whatever. That is, nothing since Rosa, his sister—You understand, she and I are—engaged-"
"Yes, yes; Esteban told me all about you."
Something in the Cuban's gravity of manner gave O'Reilly warning. A sudden fear assailed him. His voice shook as he asked:
"What is it? My God! Not bad news?"
There was no need for the officer to answer. In his averted gaze O'Reilly read confirmation of his sickest apprehensions. The men faced each other for a long moment, while the color slowly drove out of the American's cheeks, leaving him pallid, stricken. He wet his lips to speak, but his voice was no more than a dry, throaty rustle.
"Tell me! Which one?" he whispered.
"Both!"
O'Reilly recoiled; a spasm distorted his chalky face. He began to shake weakly, and his fingers plucked aimlessly at each other.
Lopez took him by the arm. "Try to control yourself," said he. "Sit here while I try to tell you what little I know. Or, would it not be better to wait awhile, until you are calmer?" As the young man made no answer, except to stare at him in a white agony of suspense, he sighed: "Very well, then, as you wish. But you must be a man, like the rest of us. I, too, have suffered. My father"—Lopez's mustached lip drew back, and his teeth showed through—"died in the Laurel Ditch at Cabanas. On the very day after my first victory they shot him—an old man, Christ! It is because of such things that we Cubans fight while we starve—that we shall continue to fight until no Spaniard is left upon this island. We have all faced something like that which you are facing now—our parents murdered, our sisters and our sweethearts wronged. …"
O'Reilly, huddled where he had sunk upon the bench, uttered a gasping, inarticulate cry, and covered his face as if from a lash.
"I will tell you all I know—which isn't much. Esteban Varona came to me soon after he and his sister had fled from their home; he wanted to join my forces, but we were harassed on every side, and I didn't dare take the girl—no woman could have endured the hardships we suffered. So I convinced him that his first duty was to her, rather than to his country, and he agreed. He was a fine boy! He had spirit. He bought some stolen rifles and armed a band of his own—which wasn't a bad idea. I used to hear about him. Nobody cared to molest him, I can tell you, until finally he killed some of the regular troops. Then of course they went after him. Meanwhile, he managed to destroy his own plantations, which Cueto had robbed him of. You knew Cueto?"
"Yes."
"Well, Esteban put an end to him after a while; rode right up to La Joya one night, broke in the door, and macheted the scoundrel in his bed. But there was a mistake of some sort. It seems that a body of Cobo's Volunteers were somewhere close by, and the two parties met. I have never learned all the details of the affair, and the stories of that fight which came to me are too preposterous for belief. Still, Esteban and his men must have fought like demons, for they killed some incredible number. But they were human—they could not defeat a regiment. It seems that only one or two of them escaped."
"Esteban? Did he—"
Colonel Lopez nodded; then he said, gravely: "Cobo takes no prisoners. I was in the Rubi hills at the time, fighting hard, and it was six weeks before I got back into Matanzas. Naturally, when I heard what had happened, I tried to find the girl, but Weyler was concentrating the pacificos by that time, and there was nobody left in the Yumuri; it was a desert."
"Then you don't know positively that she … that she—"
"Wait. There is no doubt that the boy was killed, but of Rosa's fate I can only form my own opinion. However, one of Esteban's men joined my troops later, and I not only learned something about the girl, but also why Esteban had been so relentlessly pursued. It was all Cobo's doings. You have heard of the fellow? No? Well, you will." The speaker's tone was eloquent of hatred. "He is worse than the worst of them—a monster! He had seen Miss Varona. She was a beautiful girl. …"
"Go on!" whispered the lover.
"I discovered that she didn't at first obey Weyler's edict. She and the two negroes—they were former slaves of her father, I believe—took refuge in the Pan de Matanzas. Later on, Cobo's men made a raid and—killed a great many. Some few escaped into the high ravines, but Miss Varona was not one of them. Out of regard for Esteban I made careful search, but I could find no trace of her."
"And yet, you don't know what happened?" O'Reilly ventured. "You're not sure?"
"No, but I tell you again Cobo's men take no prisoners. When I heard about that raid I gave up looking for her."
"This—Cobo"—the American's voice shook in spite of his effort to hold it steady—"I shall hope to meet him some time."
The sudden fury that filled Colonel Lopez's face was almost hidden by the gloom. "Yes. Oh yes!" he cried, quickly, "and you are but one of a hundred; I am another. In my command there is a standing order to spare neither Cobo nor any of his assassins; they neither expect nor receive quarter from us. Now, companero"—the Cuban dropped a hand on O'Reilly's bowed head—"I am sorry that I had to bring you such evil tidings, but, we are men—and this is war."
"No, no! It isn't war—it's merciless savagery! To murder children and to outrage women—why, that violates all the ethics of warfare."
"Ethics!" the colonel cried, harshly. "Ethics? Hell is without ethics. Why look for ethics in war? Violence—injustice—insanity—chaos—THAT is war. It is man's agony—woman's despair. It is a defiance of God. War is without mercy, without law; it is—well, it is the absence of all law, all good."
There was a considerable silence. Then Lopez went on in another key.
"We Cubans carry heavy hearts, but our wrongs have made us mighty, and our sufferings have made us brave. Here in the orient we do well enough; but, believe me, you cannot imagine the desolation and the suffering farther west—whole provinces made barren and their inhabitants either dead or dying. The world has never seen anything like Weyler's slaughter of the innocents. If there is indeed a God—and sometimes I doubt it—he will not permit this horror to continue; from every pool of Cuban blood another patriot will spring up, until we drive that archfiend and his armies into the sea. Go back to your own country now, and if your grief has made you one of us in sympathy, tell the world what that black butcher in Havana is doing, and beg your Government to recognize our belligerency, so that we may have arms. ARMS!"
It was some time before O'Reilly spoke; then he said, quietly: "I am not going back. I am going to stay here and look for Rosa."
"So!" exclaimed the colonel. "Well, why not? So long as we do not know precisely what has happened to her, we can at least hope. But, if I were you, I would rather think of her as dead than as a prisoner in some concentration camp. You don't know what those camps are like, my friend, but I do. Now I shall leave you. One needs to be alone at such an hour—eh?" With a pressure of his hand, Colonel Lopez walked away into the darkness.
Judson and his adventurous countryman did not see O'Reilly that night, nor, in fact, did any one. But the next morning he appeared before General Gomez. He was haggard, sick, listless. The old Porto-Rican had heard from Lopez in the mean time; he was sympathetic.
"I am sorry you came all the way to hear such bad news," he said. "War is a sad, hopeless business."
"But I haven't given up hope," O'Reilly said. "I want to stay here and—and fight."
"I inferred as much from what Lopez told me." The general nodded his white head. "Well, you'll make a good soldier, and we shall be glad to have you." He extended his hand, and O'Reilly took it gratefully.
The city of Matanzas was "pacified." So ran the boastful bando of the captain-general. And this was no exaggeration, as any one could see from the number of beggars there. Of all his military operations, this "pacification" of the western towns and provinces was the most conspicuously successful and the one which gave Valeriano Weyler the keenest satisfaction; for nowhere did rebellion lift its head—except, perhaps, among the ranks of those disaffected men who hid in the hills, with nothing above them but the open sky. As for the population at large, it was cured of treason; it no longer resisted, even weakly, the law of Spain. The reason was that it lay dying. Weyler's cure was simple, efficacious—it consisted of extermination, swift and pitiless.
Poverty had been common in Matanzas, even before the war, but now there were so many beggars in the city that nobody undertook to count them. When the refugees began to pour in by the thousands, and when it became apparent that the Government intended to let them starve, the better citizens undertook an effort at relief; but times were hard, food was scarce, and prices high. Moreover, it soon transpired that the military frowned upon everything like organized charity, and in consequence the new-comers were, perforce, abandoned to their own devices. These country people were dumb and terrified at the misfortunes which had overtaken them; they wandered the streets in aimless bewilderment, fearful of what blow might next befall. They were not used to begging, and therefore they did not often implore alms; but all day long they asked for work, for bread, that their little ones might live. Work, however, was even scarcer than food, and the time soon came when they crouched upon curbs and door-steps, hopeless, beaten, silently reproachful of those more fortunate than they. Their eyes grew big and hollow; their outstretched hands grew gaunt and skinny. The sound of weeping women and fretting babies became a common thing to hear.
In the suburbs, just within the ring of guardian forts, an "area of cultivation" was set aside, and here the prisoners put up huts of yagua—comfortless bark shelters, which were well enough, perhaps, in fair weather, but sadly ineffective against wind and rain. Here, housed with hunger and crowded together in indescribable squalor, they dwelt, seeking comfort in their common wretchedness. Since they had no farm implements, no seeds, no means whatever of cultivating this ground apportioned to their use, it remained untilled while they grew hungrier day by day. Outside the lines there were yams, potatoes, edible roots and such, for the Spaniards' work of desolation had not been quite complete, and no hand can rob the Cuban soil of all its riches; but the pacificos were not allowed to leave the city.
Fish were plentiful in the harbor, too, but to catch them was forbidden. Sentries were on guard with ready rifles and bared machetes; every morning through the filthy reconcentrado quarter guerrillas drove pack-mules bearing the mutilated bodies of those who had dared during the night to seek food surreptitiously. Sometimes they dragged these ghastly reminders at the ends of ropes; this, indeed, was a favorite way with them.
Dogs and cats became choice articles of diet, until they disappeared. The Government did supply one quality of food, however; at intervals, it distributed yucca roots. But these were starchy and almost indigestible. From eating them the children grew pinched in limb and face, while their abdomens bloated hugely. Matanzas became peopled with a race of grotesquely misshapen little folks, gnomes with young bodies, but with faces old and sick.
Of course disease became epidemic, for in the leaky hovels, dirt-floored and destitute of any convenience, there could be no effort at sanitation. Conditions became unspeakable. The children died first, then the aged and infirm. Deaths in the street were not uncommon; nearly every morning bodies were found beneath the portales. Starving creatures crept to the market in the hope of begging a stray bit of food, and some of them died there, between the empty stalls. The death-wagons, heavy with their daily freight, rumbled ceaselessly through the streets, adding to the giant piles of unburied corpses outside the city.
Typhoid, smallpox, yellow fever, raged unchecked. The hospitals were crowded, and even in them the commonest necessities were lacking. It is believed that men have returned from the grave, but no one, either Spaniard or Cuban, had ever been known to return from one of these pest-houses, and, in consequence, those who were stricken preferred to remain and to die among their dear ones.
Yes, Matanzas was pacified. Weyler's boast was true. Nowhere in the entire province was a field in cultivation; nowhere, outside the garrisoned towns, was a house left standing. Nor was the city of Matanzas the only concentration camp; there were others dotted through Santa Clara, Habana, and Pinar del Rio. In them half a million people cried for food. Truly no rebellious land was ever more completely pacified than this, no people's spirits ever more completely crushed. Voices no longer preached resistance; they prayed to "Our Lady of Pity" for a merciful conclusion of this misery. Hands were upraised, but only to implore. In leaky huts from Jucaro to Cape San Antonio the dead lay huddled thickly.
Into Matanzas, city of beggary and death, came Rosa Varona and her two negro companions, looking for relief. They made the journey without mishap, for they were too destitute to warrant plundering, and Rosa's disguise concealed what charms remained to her. But once they had entered the city, what an awakening! What suffering, what poverty, what rags they saw! The three of them grew weak with dismay at the horror of it all; but there was no retreat.
Asensio built a makeshift shelter close under La Cumbre—from it the ruins of the Quinta de Esteban were visible—and there they settled down to live. They had hoped to lose themselves among the other prisoners, and in this they were successful, for none of their miserable neighbors were in any condition to notice them, and there was nothing sufficiently conspicuous about two tattered blacks and their hunchbacked daughter to draw attention from the soldiers.
Asensio foraged zealously, and at first he managed somehow to secure enough food for his little family. He developed a real talent for discovering vegetables and fruits. He stole, he begged, and he found food where there was none. One day the soldiers seized him and put him to work on the fortifications along with a gang of other men who appeared strong enough to stand hard labor. Asensio was not paid for this, but he was allowed one meal a day, and he succeeded in bringing home each night a share of his allotment.
It is surprising how little nourishment will sustain life. Rosa and her two friends had long felt the pinch of hunger, but now they plumbed new depths of privation, for there were days when Asensio and his fellow-conscripts received nothing at all. After a time Evangelina began making baskets and weaving palm-leaf hats, which she sold at six cents each. She taught Rosa the craft, and they worked from dawn until dark, striving with nimble, tireless fingers to supplement Asensio's rations and postpone starvation. But it was a hopeless task. Other nimble fingers worked as tirelessly as theirs, and the demand for hats was limited.
Their hut overlooked the road to San Severino, that via dolorosa on which condemned prisoners were marched out to execution, and in time the women learned to recognize the peculiar blaring notes of a certain cornet, which signified that another "Cuban cock was about to crow." When in the damp of dewy mornings they heard that bugle they ceased their weaving long enough to cross themselves and whisper a prayer for the souls of those who were on their way to die. But this was the only respite they allowed themselves.
Rosa meditated much upon the contrast between her present and her former condition. Matanzas was the city of her birth, and time was when she had trod its streets in arrogance and pride, when she had possessed friends by the score among its residents. But of all these there was not one to whom she dared appeal in this, her hour of need. These were harsh times; Spanish hatred of the revolutionists was bitter, and of the Cuban sympathizers none were left. Moreover, Esteban's denouncement as a traitor had estranged all who remained loyal to the crown, and so far as Rosa herself was concerned, she knew that it would not matter to them that she had cleaved to him merely from sisterly devotion: by that act she had made herself a common enemy and they would scarcely sympathize with her plight. The girl had learned only too well what spirit was abroad. But even had she felt assured of meeting sympathy, her pride was pure Castilian, and it would never down. She, a Varona, whose name was one to conjure with, whose lineage was of the highest! She to beg? The thing was quite impossible. One crumb, so taken, would have choked her. Rosa preferred to suffer proudly and await the hour when hunger or disease would at last blot out her memories of happy days and end this nightmare misery.
Then, too, she dreaded any risk of discovery by old Mario de Castano, who was a hard, vindictive man. His parting words had shown her that he would never forgive the slight she had put upon him; and she did not wish to put his threats to the test. Once Rosa saw him, on her way to buy a few centavos' worth of sweet-potatoes; he was huddled in his victoria, a huge bladder of flesh, and he rode the streets deaf to the plaints of starving children, blind to the misery of beseeching mothers. Rosa shrank into a doorway and drew her tattered shawl closer over her face for fear Don Mario might recognize in this misshapen body and in these pinched, discolored features the beauteous blossom he had craved.
Nor did she forget Colonel Cobo. The man's memory haunted her, asleep and awake; of him she was most desperately afraid. When for the first time she saw him riding at the head of his cutthroats she was like to swoon in her tracks, and for a whole day thereafter she cowered in the hut, trembling at every sound.
In these dark hours she recalled the stories of the old Varona treasure and Esteban's interesting theory of its whereabouts, but she could not bring herself to put much faith in either. At the time of her brother's recital she had been swayed by his conviction, but now on cooler thought a dozen explanations of Dona Isabel's possession of that doubloon offered themselves, no one of which seemed less probable than Esteban's. Of course it was barely possible that there was indeed a treasure, and even that Esteban's surmise had been correct. But it was little more than a remote possibility. Distance lends a rosy color of reality to our most absurd imaginings, but, like the haze that tints a far-off landscape, it dissolves upon approach. Now that Rosa was here, in sight of the ruined quinta itself, her hopes and half-beliefs faded.
She wanted, oh, so desperately, to believe in it, but the grinding misery of her situation made it hard to do so. Wonders like that came true only in fairy stories, she told herself; and certainly she had no cause to consider herself a favorite of fortune.
More than once she was tempted to confide in Evangelina and Asensio, but she thought better of it. Although she put implicit faith in Evangelina's discretion, she knew that Asensio was not the sort of fellow to be trusted with a secret of great magnitude—he was boastful, talkative, excitable; he was just the sort, to bring destruction upon all of them. Rosa had sufficient intelligence to realize that even if she found her father's riches they would only constitute another and a greater menace to the lives of all of them. Nevertheless, she wished to set her mind at rest once and for all. Taking Evangelina with her, she climbed La Cumbre one day in search of roots and vegetables.
It turned out to be a sad experience for both women. The negress wept noisily at the destruction wrought by Pancho Cueto, and Rosa was overcome by painful memories. Little that was familiar remained; evidence of Cueto's all-devouring greed spoke from the sprouting furrows his men had dug, from the naked trees they had felled and piled in orderly heaps, from the stones and mortar of the house itself. Tears blinded Rosa. After a time she left the black woman mourning among the ruins and stole away to the sunken garden. Here the marks of vandalism were less noticeable. Nevertheless, few signs of beauty remained. Neglected vines drooped spiritlessly from the ledges: such fruit-trees as had been spared were sickly and untended; time and the elements had all but completed the disheartening work.
The well remained, although it had been planked over, but it was partially filled up with rubbish, as Rosa discovered when she peered into it. Only a tiny pool of scum was in the bottom. After a long scrutiny the girl arose, convinced at last of her brother's delusion, and vaguely ashamed of her own credulity. This was about the last repository that such a man as Don Esteban, her father, would have been likely to select; for, after all, the most valuable part of his fortune had consisted of the deeds of title to the plantations. No, if ever there had been a treasure, it was hidden elsewhere; all of value that this well contained for Rosa was her memory of a happiness departed. Of such memories, the well, the whole place, was brimful. Here, as a child, she had romped with Esteban. Here, as a girl, she had dreamed her first dreams, and here O'Reilly, her smiling knight, had found her. Yonder was the very spot where he had held her in his arms and begged her to await the day of his return. Well, she had waited.
But was that Rosa Varona who had promised so freely and so confidently this pitiful Rosa whose bones protruded through her rags? It could not be. Happiness, contentment, hope—these were fictions; only misery, despair, and pain were real. But it had been a glorious dream, at any rate—a dream which Rosa vowed to cherish always.
Evangelina found the girl sitting in the sun, her thin face radiant, her great eyes wet but smiling.
"Come, little dove," said the negress, "there is nothing here to eat; we must get back to our weaving."
It was part of the strategy practised by the Cuban leaders to divide their forces into separate columns for the purpose of raiding the smaller Spanish garrisons and harassing the troops sent to their relief, reassembling these bands only when and where some telling blow was to be struck. Not only had the military value of this practice been amply demonstrated, but it had been proved a necessity, owing to the fact that the Insurrectos were compelled to live off the country.
When O'Reilly and Branch enlisted in the Army of the Orient they were assigned to the command of Colonel Miguel Lopez, and it was under his leadership that they made their first acquaintance with the peculiar methods of Cuban warfare.
Active service for the two Americans began at once; scarcely a week had passed before Leslie Branch gained his opportunity of tasting the "salt of life" in its full flavor, for the young Matanzas colonel was one of the few Cuban commanders who really enjoyed a fight.
There had been, at first, some doubt of Branch's fitness to take the field at all—he had suffered a severe hemorrhage shortly after his arrival at Cubitas—and it was only after a hysterical demonstration on his part that he had been accepted as a soldier. He simply would not be left behind. At first the Cubans regarded him with mingled contempt and pity, for certainly no less promising volunteer had ever taken service with them. Nevertheless, he would doubtless have made many friends among them had he not begun his service by refusing to abide by discipline of any sort and by scorning all instruction in the use of arms, declaring this to be, in his case, a silly waste of effort. Such an attitude very naturally aroused resentment among the other men; it was not long before they began to grumble at the liberty allowed this headstrong weakling. But upon the occasion of the very first fight this ill-will disappeared as if by magic, for, although Branch deliberately disobeyed orders, he nevertheless displayed such amazing audacity in the face of the enemy, such a theatrical contempt for bullets, as to stupefy every one. Moreover, he lived up to his reputation; he continued to be insanely daring, varying his exploits to correspond with his moods, with the result that he attained a popularity which was unique, nay, sensational.
His conduct in the face of this general admiration was no less unexpected than his behavior under fire: Branch gruffly refused to accept any tribute whatever; he snarled, he fairly barked at those of his comrades who tried to express their appreciation of his conduct—a demeanor which of course awakened even greater admiration among the Cubans. He was uniformly surly and sour; he sneered, he scoffed, he found fault. He had the tongue of a common scold, and he used it with malevolent abandon.
It was fortunate indeed that he knew no Spanish and that most of his companions were equally ignorant of English, for mere admiration, even of the fervent Latin quality, would scarcely have been proof against his spleen. As it was, his camp-mates endured his vituperations blandly, putting him down as a pleasing eccentric in whom there blazed a curious but inspiring spirit of patriotism.
O'Reilly alone understood the reason for the fellow's morbid irritability, his suicidal recklessness; but when he privately remonstrated he was gruffly told to mind his own business. Branch flatly refused to modify his conduct; he seemed really bent upon cheating the disease that made his life a misery.
But, as usual, Fate was perverse; she refused to humor the sick man's hope. When, after blindly inviting death, Leslie had emerged from several engagements unscathed, his surprise—and perhaps a natural relief at finding himself whole—became tinged with a certain apprehension lest he survive those deliberately courted dangers, only to succumb to the ills and privations of camp life. Cuban equipment was of the scantiest. Cuban dews are heavy; Cuban nights are cool—these were perils indeed for a weak-lunged invalid. Branch began to fret. Rain filled him with more terror than fixed bayonets, a chill caused him keener consternation than did a thousand Spaniards; he began to have agonizing visions of himself lying in some leaky hovel of a hospital. It was typical of his peculiar irritability that he held O'Reilly in some way responsible, and vented upon him his bitterness of spirit.
The fellow's tongue grew ever sharper; his society became intolerable, his gloom oppressive and irresistibly contagious. When, after several weeks of campaigning, the column went into camp for a short rest, O'Reilly decided that he would try to throw off the burden of Leslie's overwhelming dejection, and, if possible, shift a portion of it upon the shoulders of Captain Judson.
On the day after their arrival O'Reilly and the big artilleryman took advantage of a pleasant stream to bathe and wash their clothes; then, while they lay in their hammocks, enjoying the luxury of a tattered oil-cloth shelter and waiting for the sun to dry their garments, O'Reilly spoke what was in his mind.
"I'm getting about fed up on Leslie," he declared. "He's the world's champion crepe-hanger, and he's painted the whole world such a deep, despondent blue that I'm completely dismal. You've got to take him off my hands."
Judson grunted. "What ails him?"
"Well, he wears a wreath of immortelles day and night. Haven't you guessed why he runs such desperate chances? He's sick—thinks he's going to die, anyhow, and wants to finish the job quick. I'm the one who has to endure him."
"Suicide?"
"It amounts to that."
"The devil!" Judson pondered for a moment. "Can't you cheer him up?"
"I?" O'Reilly lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "When I try he gets sore at my heartless indifference; when I sympathize he declares I'm nudging him closer to his grave—says I'm kicking the crutches out from under him. He's just plain vitriol. I—I'd rather live with an adder!"
O'Reilly's youthful asistente, who at the moment was painstakingly manufacturing a huge, black cigar for himself out of some purloined tobacco, pricked up his ears at the mention of Branch's name and now edged closer, exclaiming:
"Carumba! There's a hero for you. Meester Branch is the bravest man I ever seen. Our people call him 'El Demonio'!"
O'Reilly jerked his head toward the Cuban. "You see? He's made the hit of his life, and yet he resents it. The Cubans are beginning to think he carries a rabbit's foot."
"No rabbit's foot about it," the captain asserted. "He's just so blamed thin the Spaniards can't hit him; it's like shooting at the edge of a playing-card. Annie Oakley is the only one who can do that."
"Well, my nerves are frayed out. I've argued myself hoarse, but he misconstrues everything I say. I wish you'd convince him that he has a chance to get well; it might alter his disposition. If SOMETHING doesn't alter it I'll be court-martialed for shooting a man in his sleep—and I'll hit him, right in the middle, no matter how slim he is." O'Reilly compressed his lips firmly.
The asistente, who had finished rolling his cigar, now lighted it and repeated: "Yes, sir, Meester Branch is the bravest man I ever seen. You remember that first battle, eh? Those Spaniards seen him comin' and threw down their guns and beat it. Jesus Cristo! I laugh to skill myself that day."
"Jacket" was at once the youngest and the most profane member of Colonel Lopez's entire command. The most shocking oaths fell from his beardless lips whenever he opened them to speak English, and O'Reilly's efforts to break the boy of the habit proved quite unavailing.
"Colonel Miguel," continued Jacket, "he say if he's got a hunnerd sick men like El Demonio he'll march to Habana. By God! What you think of that?"
Judson rolled in his hammock until his eyes rested upon the youth. Then he said, "You're quite a man of arms yourself, for a half-portion."
"Eh?" The object of this remark was not quite sure that he understood.
"I mean you're a pretty good fighter, for a little fellow."
"Hell, yes!" agreed the youth. "I can fight."
"Better look out that some big Spaniard doesn't carry you off in his pocket and eat you," O'Reilly warned; at which the boy grinned and shook his head. He was just becoming accustomed to the American habit of banter, and was beginning to like it.
"Jacket would make a bitter mouthful," Judson ventured.
The lad smiled gently and drew on his huge cigar. "You betcher life.That——Spaniard would spit me out quick enough."
This Camagueyan boy was a character. He was perhaps sixteen, and small for his age—a mere child, in fact. Nevertheless, he was a seasoned veteran, and his American camp-mates had grown exceedingly fond of him. He was a pretty, graceful youngster; his eyes were large and soft and dark; his face was as sensitive and mobile as that of a girl; and yet, despite his youth, he had won a reputation for daring and ferocity quite as notable in its way as was the renown of Leslie Branch.
There were many of these immature soldiers among the Insurrectos, and most of them were in some way distinguished for valor. War, it seems, fattens upon the tenderest of foods, and every army has its boys—its wondrous, well-beloved infants, whom their older comrades tease, torment, and idolize. Impetuous, drunk with youth, and keeping no company with care, they form the very aristocracy of fighting forces. They gaily undertake the maddest of adventures; and by their examples they fire the courage of their maturer comrades. All history is spiced with their exploits.
Jacket was one of these, and he was perhaps the truest patriot of any soldier in Miguel Lopez's band; for liberty, to him, was not a mere abstraction or a principle, but something real, tangible, alive—something worthy of the highest sacrifice. In his person all the wrongs of Cuba burned perpetually. It mattered not that he himself had never suffered—his spirit was the spirit of his country, pure, exalted, undefiled. He stood for what the others fought for.
In order to expand his knowledge of English—of which, by the way, he was inordinately proud—Jacket had volunteered to serve as O'Reilly's striker, and the result had been a fast friendship. It was O'Reilly who had given the boy his nickname—a name prompted by a marked eccentricity, for although Jacket possessed the two garments which constituted the ordinary Insurrecto uniform, he made a practice of wearing only one. On chilly nights, or on formal occasions, he wore both waistcoat and trousers, but at other times he dispensed entirely with the latter, and his legs went naked. They were naked now, as, with the modesty of complete unconsciousness, he squatted in the shade, puffing thoughtfully at his giant cheroot.
Once Jacket's mind was fastened upon any subject, it remained there, and after a time he continued:
"Yes, I bet I don't taste good to no Spaniard. Did I told you about that battle of Pino Bravo? Eh?" He turned his big brown eyes upward to O'Reilly. "Cristo! I skill more'n a dozen men that day!"
"Oh, Jacket!" the Americans cried. "You monstrous little liar!" commented O'Reilly.
"Si, senors," the boy went on, complacently. "That day I skill more'n six men. It was this way; we came on them from behind and they don't see us. Phui! We skill plenty, all right!"
"It was a hot scrimmage," Judson attested. "Some of Luque's niggers, those tall, lean, hungry fellows from Santiago, managed to hack their way through a wire fence and get behind a detachment of the enemy who had made a stand under a hill. They charged, and for a wonder they got close enough to use their machetes. It was bloody work—the kind you read about—no quarter. Somehow Jacket managed to be right in the middle of the butchery. He's a bravo kid, all right. Muy malo!"
There was a moment's silence, then Judson continued: "Funny thing happened afterward, though. Jacket had to do his turn at picket duty that night, and he got scared of the dark. We heard him squalling and screaming—"
Jacket started to his feet. "That's a dam' lie." he exclaimed, resentfully. "I'm not scared of no dark."
"Didn't you holler till you woke the whole camp?"
"I ain't scared of no dark," the boy repeated; but his pride, his complacency, had suddenly vanished. He dug his toes into the dirt; in his eyes were tears of mortification. His cigar had evidently become tasteless, for he removed it from his lips and gazed at it indifferently.
"Did you cry?" O'Reilly smiled; and the lad nodded reluctantly.
"Did he cry?" Judson echoed. "Why, we thought we were attacked. He put the whole camp in an uproar."
"What was the trouble, Jacket?"
"I—I was—" The boy's smooth brown cheeks paled, and his moist eyes dilated at the memory. "I ain't scared of any———-Spaniard when he's ALIVE, but—it's different when he's dead. I could see dead ones everywhere!" He shuddered involuntarily. "They fetched me to General Gomez and—Caramba! he's mad. But after I tell him what I seen in the dark he say I don't have to go back there no more. He let me go to sleep 'longside of his hammock, and bimeby I quit cryin'. I ain't never stood no picket duty since that night. I won't do it."
It was plain that discussion of this unhappy subject was deeply distasteful to the youthful hero of Pino Bravo, for he edged away, and a moment later disappeared. "Queer little youngster," Captain Judson said, meditatively. "He idolizes you."
O'Reilly nodded. "Yes, poor little kid. I wonder what will become of him after the war? After the war!" he mused. "I wonder if it will ever end."
"Humph! If we had more generals like Gomez and Garcia and Maceo—"
"We've got three better generals than they."
"You mean—-"
"Generals June, July, and August."
"Oh yes!" The artilleryman nodded his understanding. "There's no end of yellow-jack among the Spaniards. Speaking of that, what do you think of Miss Evans's work in the field hospitals?"
Judson shifted his weight so that his eyes could rest upon a white tent which showed through the greenery at a distance; it was the one tent in all the encampment, and it had been erected that very morning to shelter Norine Evans, but just arrived from headquarters in the Cubitas hills. The captain's lids were half closed; his heavy, homely face was softened by a peculiar rapt expression. He did not seem to expect an answer to his question.
"I don't think much of it," O'Reilly confessed.
"You don't!" Judson brought himself back to earth with a start. "Humph! Well, I think it's perfectly wonderful. I think she's the most wonderful woman, and—" His voice died out; he turned once more in the direction of the tent.
O'Reilly smiled, understanding now the reason for his companion's reckless, almost frenzied use of soap and water that morning, and his cheerful stoicism in the hands of a volunteer barber more accustomed to the uses of a machete than a razor.
Evidently Judson had fallen, too—along with Major Ramos, and ColonelLopez, and Leslie Branch, and all the rest. Well, it was to beexpected. Before he had been a week in Cuba O'Reilly had noticed thatMiss Evans was a mystery and a delight to nearly every man she met.
"So YOU'VE got it, eh?" he inquired.
"Got what?" Judson did not turn his eyes.
"It."
"It? If you can't talk English, talk Spanish."
O'Reilly was not perturbed by this gruffness. "I think her presence here is the silliest, the most scandalous thing I ever heard of," said he. "The idea of a girl of her accomplishments, her means, alone in Cuba! Why, it's criminal!"
Judson's gunny-sacking hammock bulged beneath him. It threatened to give way as he sat up with a jerk and swung his bare legs over the side. His face was dark; he was scowling; his chin was pugnaciously outthrust and his voice rumbled as he exclaimed:
"The deuce it is! Say! I don't like the way you talk about that girl."
"You don't, eh?" O'Reilly eyed him quizzically. "Would you care to have your sister do what she's doing?"
"That's not the point. You can't compare her with ordinary women."
"Well, this isn't an ordinary environment for a woman, no matter who she is. These Cubans are bound to talk about her."
"Are they?" Judson glared at the speaker. "I'd like to hear 'em. I'd like to see somebody get fresh. Why, SAY!"—he clenched his powerful hands—"I'd fill their hospitals until they bulged." After a moment he continued: "I s'pose it's natural for you to worry, since you're responsible for her being here, in a way, but—" His tone changed, he relaxed and lay back in his hammock. "Oh, well, you're about the only man I can't hate."
"Jealous, are you? I didn't know you were in so deep."
The other shook his head. "Oh, I'm daffy. D'you think she'd have me?"
"Not a chance."
"Hey? Why not? I'm a good big husky—I'll get a Government job when the war is over and—-"
"That's just the trouble. She'll fall for some poor, sickly unfortunate, with one leg. She's the sort that always does. She's the sort that has to have something to 'mother.' Lord, I'd give a good deal to see her safely back in New York!"
Judson, it seemed, had a better understanding of artillery than of women; he pondered O'Reilly's statement seriously, and his face clouded.
"Some sickly fellow. Some fellow like Branch, eh?" After a moment he continued, more hopefully: "Well, it won't be HIM; he'll soon be dead. There's some consolation in that. I could almost—"
O'Reilly motioned for silence, for at that moment Branch himself approached, his long face set in lines of discontent, even deeper than usual. He had been wandering about the camp in one of his restless fits, and now he began:
"Say, what do you think I've been doing?"
"I dun'no'," Captain Judson answered, morosely. "Cheering the sick and wounded; shedding smiles and sunshine as usual, I suppose?"
"Hunh! You're a funny guy, aren't you?—about as comical as a chloroform cone. You make me laugh, you do—just like a broken leg. Well, I've been looking up some grub for Miss Evans, and I can't find any."
"Can't find any?"
"Nothing fit for her to eat. You don't expect her to live on this infernal, eternal, and internal beef stew." Branch shuddered and gagged slightly. "I've eaten parts of animals that were never intended to be eaten. This rebel grub is killing ME. What'll it do to her?"
"Didn't Major Ramos bring anything along?" O'Reilly asked.
"He says there's a famine at Cubitas."
"We'd better look into this," Judson exclaimed, and, finding that his clothes were dry, he hurriedly began to dress himself.
Together, the three men made an investigation of the camp's resources, only to discover that Branch was right. There was, indeed, but little food of any kind, and that little was of the coarsest. Ordinarily, such a condition of affairs would have occasioned them no surprise, for the men were becoming accustomed to a more or less chronic scarcity of provisions; but the presence of Norine Evans put quite a different complexion upon the matter. They were still discussing the situation when Miss Evans, having finished her afternoon nap, threw open the flaps of her tent and stepped out.
When she had listened to the account apologetically submitted by her three friends, she drew her brows together, saying, plaintively: "Oh dear! We've been going short for a week, and Major Ramos told me we'd fare better when we got here. I had my mouth all set for a banquet. Couldn't you even find the poor dog a bone?"
Norine was thinner and browner than when she had come to Cuba, but she in no way showed the effect of any serious or continued lack of nourishment. In fact, a simple diet and an outdoor life had agreed with her amazingly.
"I'm afraid the cupboard is bare," O'Reilly acknowledged.
"They're getting ready to slaughter another guttapercha ox," Branch said, gloomily. "He's a veteran of the Ten Years' War. That means STEW again! STEW! One puncture-proof, rubber ox and a bushel of sweet-potatoes for four hundred men!"
"Do you know what I want for dinner?" Norine inquired. "Lamb chops with green peas, some nice white bread, a salad, and coffee."
The three men looked at her anxiously. Judson stirred uneasily.
"That's what I want. I don't expect to get it."
With a sigh of relief the captain exclaimed, "I thought you were giving your order."
"Goodness, no!" With a laugh the girl seated herself upon her one camp-chair, inviting her callers to dispose themselves on the ground about her. "If you can stand the food, I dare say I can. Now then, tell me what you've been doing since you left Cubitas. I've been frightened to death that some of you would be hurt. That's one reason why I've been working night and day helping to get the hospitals in shape. I can't bear to think of our boys being wounded."
"Not much chance of OUR getting shot," O'Reilly told her. "ButLeslie—he needs a good talking to. He has gone into the hero business."
Branch uttered a disdainful grunt. "Nothing of the sort. I'm a sick man; if I'd rather get shot than suffer a slow death from neglect, it's my own business, isn't it? Imagine feeding an invalid on boiled bicycle tires! Gee! I'd like to have a meal of nice nourishing ptomaines for a change. Hero? Humph!"
Norine eyed the complainant critically, then said: "The diet agrees with you. You look better than you did."
Branch turned a somber glance upon her and gave vent to a bitter, sneering laugh. It was plain that he believed she, too, was attempting to pull the wool over his eyes. "I wish I could find some poisonous toadstools. I'd eat 'em raw."
"Listen," Norine went on. "Let's play a game. We'll imagine this is Delmonico's and we'll all take turns ordering the best things to eat that we can think of. The one who orders best, wins. We'll call the game—" She frowned thoughtfully.
"Call it 'Vittles,'" O'Reilly suggested.
"'Vittles' it is. Maybe it will give us an appetite for supper. Leslie, you begin. Come now, hand your hat to the hat-boy, then follow the head waiter. This way, sir. Table for one? Very good, sir. Here's a cool one, in front of the electric fan. We have an exceptional selection of cold dishes to-day, sir. Perhaps you would like a nice halibut salad—"
"No halibut salad," Branch answered, striving valiantly to enter into the spirit of Norine's pretending. "I had it for breakfast. And say, turn off that fan; I'm just back from Cuba. Now then, you may bring me some oysters—"
"Oysters are out of season," O'Reilly murmured, politely, "but our clams are very fine."
"Some oysters," Branch insisted, stubbornly. "After that, a cup of chicken broth, a grilled sweetbread, and toast Melba."
Joe Judson put an abrupt end to the invalid's meal by hurling a clod at him, crying: "You're in Delmonico's, not in Battle Creek. Let somebody order who knows how. We'll have steak and onions all around."
"I want strawberries!" Norine cried. "They're ripe now. Strawberries and cream—Oh-h! Think of it!"
There was a tense silence, which O'Reilly broke by saying, "I guess'Vittles' isn't a very good game, after all."
"It doesn't seem to fill MY wants," the girl acknowledged. "Let's talk about something else."
Miss Evans did seem truly concerned for the welfare of her "boys," as she termed the little group of Americans whom she had met, and she showed, by asking numerous questions, that her interest was keen.
The men were glad to talk and she soon gained an insight into the peculiar, aimless, unsatisfactory, and yet effective method of warfare practised by the Insurrecto armies; they told her of the endless marches and counter-marches, the occasional skirmishes, the feints, the inconclusive engagements which were all a part of the general strategy—operations which served to keep the enemy constantly on guard, like a blind swordsman, and would, it was hoped, eventually wear down his patience and endurance. In her turn, Norine related something of what she was doing and how her labor of mercy progressed.
"I'm nearly discouraged," she confessed, finally. "Everything is so different to what I thought it would be, and I'm so weak and ineffective. The medical supplies I brought are nearly all gone, and I've learned what hard work it is fitting up hospitals when there's nothing to fit them up with. I can't teach these people to take care of themselves—they seem to consider precautions against disease as a confession of cowardice. Summer, the yellow-fever season, is here and—well, I'm getting disheartened. Disheartened and hungry! They're new sensations to me." She sighed. "I imagined I was going to work wonders—I thought I was going to be a Florence Nightingale, and the men were going to idolize me."
"Don't they?" Judson demanded.
"No. That is—not in exactly the way I expected."
"They all want to marry her," O'Reilly explained.
"Insolent bunch!" growled the captain. Then he swallowed hard and said,"But for that matter, so do I."
"Why, Joe!" Norine cast a startled glance at the big fellow.
"It's a fact," he asserted, doggedly. "I might as well declare myself here and now. There's always a gang of eavesdroppers hanging around you."
"He means you, Leslie," O'Reilly said. "Hadn't you better take a walk?"
Branch rolled a hostile eye at the artilleryman, and his lip curled."I'll not move. When he gets through, I'll propose."
"How silly you boys can be!" Norine laughed. "I dare say the others are joking too, but—"
"Joking?" O'Reilly grinned. "Not at all. I'm the only single man in camp who isn't in love with you. When you arrived this morning there was a general stampede for the river. I'll bet the fish in this stream will taste of soap for years to come."
As if to point O'Reilly's words at the moment appeared Colonel Lopez, shaved blood-raw and clad in a recently laundered uniform which was still damp. The three Americans rose to salute him, but discipline was lax and he waved them back to their seats. Other eyes than his, too, had noted Miss Evans's reappearance after her siesta, for Major Ramos, Norine's escort from headquarters, soon joined the group, and he was followed by two Camagueyan lieutenants.
These latter were youths of some family standing. Before the war they had been dandies, and they still had an excellent opinion of their physical charms, but, unfortunately, they spoke no English and hence their attentions to Norine had been somewhat vague and pointless. They possessed eloquent eyes, however, and now they languished melting glances upon her, the meaning of which she had no difficulty in translating.
"We've been talking about food," Leslie Branch advised his commanding officer. "Miss Evans isn't a burning patriot like the rest of us, and so of course she can't share our ravenous appetite for beef cooked and eaten on the hoof."
"So?" Lopez's handsome face clouded. "You are hungry, then?"
Norine confessed that she was. "I'm starving!" said she. "I haven't had a decent meal for a week."
"God be praised! I know where there is a goat, not two leagues away!" said the colonel.
"But I don't want a goat," Norine complained. "I want—well, pickles, and jam, and sardines, and—candy, and—tooth-powder! Real boarding-school luxuries. I'd just like to rob a general store."
Lopez furrowed his brows and lost himself in thought. Later, while the others were talking, he drew Ramos aside and for a while they kept their heads together; then they invited Judson to join their council.
It was not until perhaps an hour later that O'Reilly had a chance for a confidential talk with Norine, for in the mean time other officers came to pay their respects. But when the last one had reluctantly departed he said:
"I've been talking to Joe about you, and I don't think it's right for you to be running around alone this way."
"You know how mad that sort of talk makes me," she warned him.
"Yes. Just the same, I'll never feel easy until you're safe home again.And I'll never stop bothering you until—"
"In the first place, I'm not alone. I take a woman with me everywhere, a Mrs. Ruiz."
"Bah! She's no more of a chaperon than I am."
Norine uttered an impatient exclamation. "Is this a time to consider such things?"
"Oh, I dare say the nature of your work is unconventional and excuses a good deal, but you don't understand the Latin mind as I do. These Cubans have different standards than ours. They're very apt to think—"
"I don't care what they think," the girl declared, "so long asIthink I'm doing right. That's final."
There was a brief pause. Then O'Reilly admitted: "I'm not seriously concerned over that part of it, either, for you are the best judge of what is right and proper. What does concern me, however, is the effect all this may have upon you, yourself. You're impractical, romantic"—Norine laughed shortly, but he went on, stubbornly—"and just the sort of girl to be carried away by some extravagant impulse."
"What makes you think I'm impractical and romantic?"
"You wouldn't be here, otherwise."
"Very well. What are you trying to get at? What do you mean by 'some extravagant impulse'?"
"I'm afraid"—O'Reilly hesitated, then voiced a fear which had troubled him more than he cared to acknowledge—"I'm afraid of some silly entanglement, some love affair—"
Norine's laughter rang out, spontaneous, unaffected. It served to relieve the momentary tension which had sprung up between them.
"All these men are attracted to you, as it is quite natural they should be," O'Reilly hurried on. "I'm worried to death for fear you'll forget that you're too blamed good for any of them."
"What a conscientious duenna you are!" she told him, "but rest easy; I'm thoroughly homesick, and ready to flunk it all at the first good excuse. I'll make you a promise, Johnnie. If I decide to fall in love with any of these ragged heroes I'll choose you. Most of them think there is something between us, anyhow."
"I don't quite understand how I manage to resist you," O'Reilly told her, "for I think you're perfectly splendid. Probably that's why I'd hate to see you married to some one-legged veteran of this amateur war."
"Women don't marry legs," she told him, lightly. Then, more seriously, she asked, "What are you doing about Rosa?"
"I'm waiting to hear from Matanzas Province. When I joined the army I had to go where I was sent, of course, but General Gomez has started inquiries, and as soon as I learn something definite I shall follow it up. I shall go where the trail leads."
"You still have hope?"
He nodded. "I refuse to let myself doubt."
When O'Reilly joined Judson for supper the latter met him with a broad grin on his face. "Well," said he, "it seems you started something with your game of 'Vittles.' You can get ready to saddle up when the moon rises."
"What do you mean?"
"The colonel took Miss Evans at her word. We're going to raid San Antonio de los Banos—two hundred of us—to get her some pickles, and jam, and candy, and tooth-powder."