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."
XVIII
SPEAKING OF FOOD
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 Colonel
Lopez, and Leslie Branch, and all the rest. Well, it was to be
expected. Before he had been a week in Cuba O'Reilly had noticed that
Miss 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."