When Manuello escaped from the temporary hospital near Camp McCalla, he
directed his eager steps toward the place of his nativity, because, as
it seemed to him, he would be safer there than he had recently been; it
seemed to him that if he could reach the deserted hut where he had been
in concealment before, he could rest and recover while he made plans for
his future, for he had decided that it would be dangerous for him to
follow the American army any longer, at least for a time.
In devious ways and through the use of means known only to such as he,
he managed to reach a point midway between Santiago and Havana in a much
shorter time than would have seemed possible to one unversed in the ways
of the wilderness; here he encountered, suddenly and unexpectedly, the
good Priest whom he had known from childhood, who, also, seemed hurrying
in the direction of Havana.
The young man kept away from the habitation of men as much as possible
after that, and, footsore and weary, but happy in the thought that he
had reached his goal, he arrived, at length, just at sunset, in the
outskirts of the village of San Domingo; from there he followed the
winding path up which little Tessa had so often toiled in his service,
he thought of her but did not regret the blow he had given her; in fact,
his anger still burned at white heat whenever he remembered how she had
disfigured his features, forgetting altogether what she had done for
him, because she had not done everything that he had asked her to do.
At length, he reached the vicinity of the deserted hut and stole up to
reconnoitre before entering the ruined habitation; he crept up to one of
the small windows and peered within; the sight that met his vision
startled him to such an extent that he forgot, for the moment, his
habitual caution and remained at the window although he had discovered
that the hut was occupied; the room he looked into was dimly lit by the
rays of the setting sun which penetrated the dense growth of tropical
verdure and found their way into the small western aperture that
answered the purpose of a look-out toward the village; Tessa was lying,
looking very wan and care-worn, upon the rude bed she had arranged for
the man who was then staring at her ... in her thin hand was a crucifix
which Father Felix had just given to her ... the good Priest was
kneeling upon the rough floor beside the couch and the tears were
rolling down his cheeks, for the sight before him would have moved far
less tender hearts than his; the girl began to speak in a low voice and
Manuello strained his power of hearing to catch the faint words which
fell from her pale and trembling lips.
"Good Father," she began, speaking as if at confession, "I beseech you
to have mercy upon your sinful daughter; I have done grievous wrong
during my short life and I beg you to intercede with the God of truth
and justice before whose judgment seat I will soon appear. I ask you to
pray for me, Father Felix, for I am in need of your prayers. I have been
a wicked girl in some ways, though not in all, for I have resisted a
very strong desire which was a part of my sinful nature and which I
believe I have, now, through suffering, gained the victory over."
The girl ceased speaking from sheer weakness, then, and the Priest took
the crucifix from her shaking hand and attached it to the cord at his
waist, then he lifted his clasped hands in earnest and humble
supplication:
"Father Who art in heaven," he prayed, "listen to us who are in Thy
gracious Hands, both here and hereafter. Help me to guide this suffering
soul aright and help her to walk where she was meant to walk, whether
she regains her health and returns to the life she has had, formerly, or
whether she passes out of this narrow existence and goes into eternity
before another morning dawns. Look down, dear Father, in mercy on us who
are Thy humble servants. Amen."
"Father Felix," began the sick girl, "I must confess to you something
that has lain heavily upon my conscience for many weeks. I am rejoiced
that you have found me for I will die easier to know that you have the
secrets that I have been keeping in my heart, being unable to come to
the refectory and tell you what I must, now, impart to you. A heinous
crime was committed in San Domingo some months ago, as I believe by one
whom you and I both know; I have withheld my suspicions from the
authorities and, in so doing, I feel that I have done wrong, Father. I
wish to tell you all I know, now, and let you do what you think best ...
it will relieve my heart of a very heavy load to tell this to you.
Manuello...."
Before her lips could utter the next word, the door of the hut which had
been leaning over the opening designed for it as it had long been
guiltless of hinges, was violently thrust aside and the subject of the
remarks Tessa was about to make, rudely entered and advanced to the side
of the couch upon which the girl was lying; the livid scar upon his dark
face combined with the pallor that had followed the fever he had been
having, the freshly bandaged wound, the limp that had followed the rough
dressing of the bullet-punctured leg of the man, combined with the
fierce determination that characterized each one of his movements,
altogether made a most unpleasant appearance.
Father Felix quietly rose and stepped between the sufferer on the couch
and the young Cuban who regarded the Priest with no respect in the
expression of his countenance, but rather with contempt and lack of
personal fear; he attempted to shove him aside so that he might again
look down on the trembling occupant of the rude bed, but found that
Father Felix was standing firmly on a sturdy pair of legs which had had
good exercise in tramping about the hills and valleys in pursuit of his
chosen profession of saving the souls of those who needed his
ministrations; Manuello glared at him and snarled out:
"Out of my way with your sing-song prayers and your dangling cross! I am
a desperate man and do not mean to allow even a Priest to balk either my
escape or my vengeance! Stand aside and let me stop that mouth forever!"
He again tried to shove the Priest aside, when Father Felix hastily
threw off his robe so that it might not impede his movements and closed
with the young fellow, grappling with him with arms left bare from the
shoulder upon which the biceps muscles stood out in great knots that
came and went and rippled underneath the skin; Manuello was surprised at
this onslaught for the good Priest's fighting prowess had never, so far,
been tested in just this way; but familiarity with certain turns and
twists told in the young villain's favor in spite of the freshness and
vigor of Father Felix' attack; the poor girl on the floor was unable to
interfere and watched the two combatants with horrified eyes as they
struggled all over the rude room, sometimes one and sometimes the other
seeming about to conquer; neither one of the contestants had a weapon as
Manuello had come away from the hospital clad only as the other patients
were; in his wild flight he had snatched an outer garment from among the
many lying in a heap outside the door through which he had fled, but,
with this exception, he wore only what had been put upon him by the
surgeons.
Like two Titans, the two human beings struggled for supremacy, the one
being actuated only by a desire to serve the right, and the other
seeming to have been given almost satanic power as he felt that his own
life and future freedom depended upon adding two more to his victims,
for the Priest had already heard enough to make him find out more and
Tessa had been about to confess all she knew to him, so, above
everything on earth, the furious Cuban wished to slay the Priest and the
poor girl whose only fault had been her yielding to his selfishness.
Twice, Manuello's fingers almost closed about the good Priest's throat,
and twice did Father Felix lift the other man bodily from the floor and
dash him down in a huddled heap in one corner of the room, but neither
had quite conquered when an unexpected interference ended the conflict
very suddenly.
Manuello had crowded Father Felix over toward the tumble-down door of
the hut and was about to push him through the opening, or, at least,
attempt to do so, when, all at once the young fellow felt his fingers
lose their strength and his arms fell away from the body of the
Priest ... he was conscious of a strange, tingling sensation all through
his shaken nerves; had he been familiar with the action of powerful
electric currents, he would have described it as a heavy shock of
electricity but, although he could not have altogether explained his
sensations, their effect was instantaneous and resulted in the release
of Father Felix while his assailant dropped prone upon the floor of the
hut and groveled at his feet in abject terror, for he thought the end of
his life had come and, in that thought, the murderer became the penitent
and, with the fear of death before his mind, he began to mumble broken
bits of half-forgotten prayers and to beg for forgiveness for his sins
which he knew to be many and grievous.
As the changed attitude of his foe became evident to the good Priest he
hurried over to the side of the sick girl with assurances of his desire
to assist her in every possible way and, with the changed conditions
surrounding him, he again put on the robe of his holy office, and, with
it, seemed again to be the sedate and quiet leader of the flock he
strove to lead into green pastures and beside pleasant waters.
Having ministered to Tessa, for the moment, he turned his attention to
his late antagonist:
"My Son," he said, "you are wounded and spent with the loss of blood;
your mind, perhaps, has been turned by your misfortunes so that you did
not realize either your words or your actions. I hope that, from this
time on, you will fix your mind on better things than thoughts of
vengeance or of murder. To begin with, I have a favor to ask of you.
Will you help me remove Tessa, here, from this place to her home? She is
in need of tender care."
"I will do what you tell me to," meekly answered the recent antagonist
of the Priest. "I see that I was wrong in imagining you to be my enemy.
I think that this last wound has made me crazy for the time, as you have
just said. From this time on I will try to be as I have been before ...
glad to be guided by your higher wisdom. I humbly ask your pardon for
what I have done here, tonight."
Manuello bowed his head for his spirit had been broken by the strange
happening which we have described, and, at once, his hope began to rise
again, that, after all, Father Felix would do him no real harm, for he
seemed, again, the kind and loving prelate whom the man had known from
his youth up.
When some simple preparations had been made, the two men lifted Tessa
from the rude couch to the stretcher they had improvised, and, in turn,
lifted it, with its light burden, to their shoulders, when, from time to
time, they found an open space in the dense underbrush that hid the
ruined hut from ordinary observation; thus they descended the hill that
led to the village of San Domingo; having reached the door of the home
of the girl, in the gathering darkness, they laid the stretcher down and
Manuello disappeared as Father Felix knocked for admittance.
To say the young fellow was glad to be released from what seemed to him
to be the custody of the Priest would be to put his feelings lightly,
for, having cleared the ruined hut, he quickly returned to it and, lying
on the simple bed Tessa had so lately occupied, he went to sleep,
apparently, as sweetly as a new-born infant would.
Old Mage wondered, a little, at Estrella's remark concerning Manuello,
after he had disappeared; but she finally set her mind at rest by
deciding that, whichever of the dashing Cubans she had ousted from
Ruth's help, she had done good work, for, as she said to herself, from
her view-point it was "good riddance to bad rubbage."
The head surgeon made a note of the occurrence and went on about his
work, for one man more or less, in time of war, cannot be reckoned as in
civil life.
Ruth Wakefield had no doubt at all as to the identity of her former
patient; when a pure girl has given herself to be the wife of any man
she does not, soon, forget his personality, and Ruth knew very well the
man she'd cared for had not been the one she'd called her husband ...
that his body lay within its narrow grave she felt assured but what lay
buried over him old Mage, alone, yet knew; she'd chuckled, many times,
as to that burial, and it was hard for her to keep her secret as she
longed for the approval that she felt she merited in this small matter,
but the thought that Ruth might differ with her as to what she'd done
had always, so far, sealed her lips.
"There is a time in the affairs of men that, taken at its flood, leads
on to fortune," has been said by one who, justly, has been called a
master in the art of putting words together; William Shakespeare did not
know the actors in this story, but he knew the minds of men as few have
known them since his time.
Manuello did not know that such a writer as this master of the English
language had ever existed, yet he acted on the thought in the above
quotation, when, the morning after the events related in this chapter,
he again departed from the ruined hut and disappeared, effectually,
within the fastnesses that only such as he could know about; every inch,
or so it seemed, of territory surrounding Havana was familiar to the
Cuban scouts and Manuello had grown up among the cacti and the palms and
desolation that followed in the wake of Spanish oppression and
injustice.