June 10, 1898, was a memorable day for Cuba, for, on that date, the
glorious flag of our own much-beloved country was unfurled over Cuban
soil, upheld and supported by United States troops, for the first time.
Father Felix had kept himself well informed as to military matters, and
had often consulted with Ruth Wakefield concerning what would actually
be needed by our armies when they were finally in the field; in
pursuance of the purpose to which they had both devoted their lives and
fortunes, these two had established a temporary hospital not far from
the city of Santiago, as the good Priest had been informed that one of
the next moves of our forces would be in that vicinity; so that, when
our starry banner first floated in the breeze at Camp McCalla, Ruth
stood beside the new-fledged army Chaplain, and watched, through
tear-dimmed eyes, the emblem of our liberty and freedom as it was
proudly raised.
That night passed quietly, but, for five successive days and nights
thereafter, a bitter battle raged in which our blue-clad boys met and
finally defeated the Spanish hordes that tried to drive them back or
leave their lifeless bodies lying there beneath the blistering sun.
When Ruth had sailed from Havana she had brought her little household
with her and established them in temporary quarters near the hospital,
and, soon, she saw the little white cots filled with sick or wounded
Americans and Cuban scouts.
Volunteer nurses were immediately in demand as, in many ways, our forces
were unprepared to meet the enemy; there are no soldiers in the world as
brave ... as fine ... as capable ... as are our own United States
Volunteers ... both men and women, and, so, Ruth Wakefield and Estrella,
anxious to put into practice what they had learned to do, donned the
clean white uniforms they had become accustomed to in the training they
had taken in Havana for this very purpose, and, very soon, to the eye of
a novice, there were two more trained nurses ministering to the many
wants of the boys who lay there on those narrow cots, weak and suffering
but triumphant in spite of their pain, for the cause of right had won in
the first real conflict upon Cuban soil between the Spaniards and the
Americans assisted by Cuban insurgents, who, mainly, acted as spies and
scouts, a work to which they were adapted by nature and long practice in
a country infested by those whose only object in ruling it had been to
gain what they could, in resources and amusement, from the natives,
with no thought either for their comfort or advancement along the lines
of civilized living.
Among the Cuban scouts who had been wounded on that first day of actual
combat was one who happened to fall under the care of Estrella for he
had been carried in right after her entry into the work of the hospital;
this man had been slightly wounded as he was about to give valuable
information to one of our own officers, and, perhaps for that reason and
because he had shown himself to be particularly useful, he had received
even more than the usual attention on the battle-field, for his wound
had been dressed more carefully than is customary when first aid is
given in the midst of the fray, so that the attending surgeon had
declared his condition such that all he needed was tender care, which
was why his case had been assigned to a volunteer nurse.
Estrella gravely assumed the duty allotted to her, with some misgivings
as to her own ability, it is true, but with a strong resolve to do the
best she could; as she bent over her patient, she noticed, first, his
almost deathly pallor, then a jagged scar that stretched across his
cheek and had been lately healed ... the edges of it were yet red and
angry looking; the girl bent over him pityingly, and, then, she started
back for she had recognized, even in the dim light that pervaded the
temporary hospital, the features of Manuello; remembering what she had
seen in the ruined hut, she shrank from contact with her old admirer,
but, with that memory came the knowledge that he had been wounded while
in the performance of a service of benefit to her beloved country, and
she did not falter in carrying out the instructions of the surgeon in
charge with regard to her patient, thinking that, perhaps, before he had
recognized her, she might be transferred to some other part of the
hospital.
Ruth took her place among the ministering nurses with confidence and
courage, for she was one who immediately altogether forgot almost her
own identity when asked to help another human being, and, while her
sympathy with suffering was remarkable, so that she actually suffered
pain herself when witnessing it in others, yet she had always been able
to do whatever was required of her in an emergency regardless of any
bodily ailment that might be troubling her at the time; now, as she saw
all around her strong men laid low by violence, her spirit rose to the
occasion and she was, for the time, at least, the very personification
of patriotic zeal and her love for her country rose to heights almost
undreamed of even by herself; she moved among the little cots freely,
lending a hand here and whispering a word of encouragement there; the
nurses recognized in her a master spirit, at once, and the surgeons
looked into her steady eyes, and, instantly, allowed her privileges
seldom granted to anyone outside of their own profession; her very
presence seemed to give the sufferers courage to bear their pain, for
the light that shone from her clear, gray eyes was above the things of a
merely earthly existence and lifted them out of their bodies, to some
extent, making them impervious to what would have otherwise been
excruciating anguish; surgeons, at that time, did not recognize the
mental attitude of their patients, to any great extent, and they
marveled at the influence of the mistress of the mansion on the hill,
attributing it, in part, to the evident superiority of the young woman
to those with whom she had been associated in Cuba.
In passing among the little cots, Ruth, at length, came to the one
beside which Estrella was standing, anxiously looking into her patient's
flushed face, for, with returning strength, Manuello's fever had risen;
Ruth put one hand on the girl's shoulder and drew her away from the cot
for a moment while she whispered to her:
"Do not weary yourself too much, my Dear, for we must keep our strength
so as to be able to help others ... you seem distressed ... do you know
your patient, personally?"
Estrella was only too glad to tell her kind and understanding friend
just the situation in which she found herself, so that, when the young
Cuban opened his large, dark eyes and looked about him in astonishment,
it was upon Ruth's face he gazed instead of on Estrella's whom the
former had sent into another part of the work of caring for the
wounded.
"Where am I?" moaned Manuello. "What has happened to me, now?"
"You have been sorely wounded in the service of your country, my brave
fellow ... you are now in a hospital where you will receive every
possible care and attention," answered Ruth in a low, yet clear tone of
voice. "You are in the hands of those who appreciate what you have done
and greatly desire to assist in your recovery."
Having assured himself that he was among friends, he began to make
inquiries as to the nature of his wound, wondering how long it would be
necessary for him to remain as he was then, but Ruth only told him that
he must not talk and must use every precaution he could to prevent
increase of the fever that was now high enough to demand the use of the
handy little thermometer that Ruth, in common with the other amateur
nurses with whom she had studied, had learned how to operate; she
promptly thrust this little fever-gauge into his mouth and told him to
keep it there quietly until she took it away; gazing at her as if she
were a creature from another world, Manuello lay there quiescent and
tractable, all his wild nature being centred upon his desire to again be
the free, strong being he had but recently been.
Old Mage peered into the room where the cots of the wounded soldiers and
sailors had been placed and caught a glimpse of her dear young lady as
she stood by the bedside of Manuello; he had just opened his eyes, and,
as he lay there with his black curls touching the white pillow, he
reminded the old woman very much of another handsome, dark young fellow
whom she believed to be lying in his narrow grave in the little
cemetery ... the narrow grave in which she had buried the wedding-ring
that had brought so much sorrow to the one whom she loved best in all
the world: as the old woman looked at the dark face on the pillow she
noticed the angry scar that disfigured it and thought that it might have
changed the face she remembered as without a blemish so that she would
have difficulty in recognizing it; her mind began to travel along the
line of thought suggested by this possibility and she determined to rid
Ruth of the necessity of attending to her former husband, at least, if
her most dire suspicions should prove to be well founded; she at once
remembered that she, herself, had not seen the corpse of the man
interred as Victorio Colenzo and she knew very well how earthly death
will change the appearance of a human being's body ... then she thought
of what had been told to her as to how the man had died ... altogether
it seemed to her very possible that the man she had seen in the little
cemetery on the day of the funeral she had attended with Estrella might
have been some one closely resembling Manuello, so that, perhaps,
Estrella's foster brother had been buried in the supposed grave of
Victorio Colenzo, who, wishing to be free from both entangling alliances
he had made in San Domingo, had allowed the name under which he had
entered into them to be placed upon the simple head-stone that marked
the grave of another man.
As soon as old Mage had arrived at the conclusion above described, she
acted on it at once by slipping stealthily up to Ruth and whispering to
her:
"Come away, my Pretty; you are needed; there is someone outside who
wishes to speak to you at once. I will take your place."
Ruth, thinking the summons important, yielded her place for a moment,
intending to return within a very few moments, but no sooner had old
Mage assumed charge of the patient than she began to devise ways and
means by which she hoped to prolong the stay of her dear young lady, for
it seemed to her to be too much for her to bear ... to care for her
recreant husband under all the trying circumstances.
The first thing that the new nurse did would have been severely
criticized by the head surgeon had his attention not been fully occupied
in another part of the large room; to begin with, instead of smoothing
back the dark hair from the man's forehead as it would seem to one
observing her from the rear she was doing, she very deliberately pulled
the handful of curls she was clutching, hoping to make him open his eyes
so that she could continue her scrutiny of him in order to be as certain
as possible of his suspected identity; this ruse succeeded, for
Manuello's large, dark brown eyes flew open and were fixed in horror on
the face bending over him; it was quite a different countenance than the
one he had last seen beside him, for old Mage never had been a beauty
and the loss of her teeth had not added to her appearance while the
ferocity of her glance was accentuated by the multitude of criss-cross
wrinkles which surrounded the light blue eyes out of which she was
glaring at him; the words she hissed in his ear added to the confusion
under which the helpless man was laboring:
"I thought that you were dead and buried out of sight ... you hateful,
low-lived pup! How dare you be brought into her place, now? If I did
just right, I do believe I'd choke the life out of you while you can't
fight back! The girl's here, too ... you must be a devil in human form!
You ought to be burning in hell!"
The object that had led old Mage to make this attack upon the wounded
man was about to be accomplished, for, with a wild scream, he vaulted
over the foot of the little cot and bounded through the open doorway as
if he were pursued by demons; his temporary nurse did not try to prevent
his exit which was what she had longed to bring about, although the
manner of his going startled even her, as she had no idea of the effect
that her hasty words would have upon the guilty spirit of the man whose
crimes, it seemed to him, had found him out; the new wound he had that
day received, was not of a nature to impede his progress for a short
distance, and he almost instantly disappeared from among the nurses and
surgeons; his wild expression so impressed all whom he met before he
reached the outskirts of the hospital grounds that he was again a
fugitive, hunted, this time, by both friends and enemies.
As Ruth was about to return to her patient, for she could find no
immediate need of her presence elsewhere, she met an excited nurse who
told her of having seen an excessively active young man flying out into
the open, clad only in hospital garb.
Ruth was hurrying to report the circumstances to the head surgeon and to
arrange to have searching parties sent out to bring back her pseudo
patient, when, passing the cot where old Mage was still stationed, she
noted that it was empty; stopping to inquire the reason for this change,
her old nurse hurriedly related the facts concerning the exodus of the
young man, while she secretly rejoiced at the success of her strategem,
for so she chose to denominate the method she had taken of protecting
her dear young lady from the nearness of the man she had married through
mistaken confidence.
Estrella, having been sent to consult with her friend concerning some
matter connected with the welfare of the temporary hospital, came along,
just then, and was told what had happened.
"Why," she exclaimed, "where has poor Manuello gone? He is not fit to be
outside alone. I am afraid I was a coward to leave him when he needed
care. Poor little Tessa would have stayed right with him no matter what
he said or did. I have not seen her," she mused, "for a long time,
now ... not since a number of days before we came away from home.... I
wonder where she is."
Could Estrella have seen her little friend at that moment, she would
have lost all pity for Manuello and added to that she already had for
poor Tessa, for she was then suffering from the last encounter she had
had with the man who had just fled out into the night; although the
little peasant would have been proud to have been made the wife of the
man whom she madly loved, yet she resisted the idea of being merely his
mistress for Father Felix had forcibly impressed upon the minds of the
girls of his flock the virtue of chastity; the consequence of this
resistance had been a blow received by herself which had rendered her
helpless for the time being, as it had made it impossible for her to
walk for any distance, and a slash across one of Manuello's dusky cheeks
which she had made with a knife she had happened to have in her hand at
the time of his attack.
The heart-sick girl was lying on the rude bed she had made for the man
who had left her without aid, in the deserted hut into which Estrella
had once peered, while her friend, so far away from her, was bemoaning
the fate of her ungrateful former lover.
She had carried some food and water into the hovel upon the day of her
last struggle with Manuello and she could creep about the inside of the
small building, so that, being hardy and healthy, she had, at that time,
subsisted upon the supplies she had on hand, for several days; she was
just beginning to crawl carefully out into the surrounding brush where
she was glad to find plenty of ripe cactus-fruit and other wild edibles;
she was very lonely and frightened but she took her condition as a
punishment for the sins she had committed since she had tried to assist
Manuello in spite of the fact that she had known him to be a criminal;
she told her beads, over and over, using the small rosary which she had
always worn about her neck, and, as she kissed the crucifix attached to
the beads, she often prayed for the man who was the direct cause of her
pitiable condition, for she believed it to be her plain duty to forgive,
even though she could not forget, him.