alive unless they saw their breath on a looking-glass. Goodness! How I
hate a sneering skeptic, a wet blanket."
O'Reilly rose with one arm shielding his face. "In the interest of
friendship, I withdraw. A curse on these buried treasures, anyhow. We
shall yet come to blows."
As he walked away he heard Norine say: "Don't pay any attention to him.
We'll go and dig it up ourselves, and we won't wait until the war is
over."
An hour later Esteban and his nurse still had their heads together.
They were still talking of golden ingots and pearls from the Caribbean
the size of plums when they looked up to see O'Reilly running toward
them. He was visibly excited; he waved and shouted at them. He was
panting when he arrived.
"News! From Matanzas!" he cried. "Gomez's man has arrived."
Esteban struggled to rise, but Norine restrained him. "Rosa? What does
he say? Quick!"
"Good news! She left the Pan de Matanzas with the two negroes. She went
into the city before Cobo's raid."
Esteban collapsed limply. He closed his eyes, his face was very white.
He crossed himself weakly.
"The letter is definite. It seems they were starving. They obeyed
Weyler's bando. They're in Matanzas now."
"Do you hear, Esteban?" Norine shook her patient by the shoulder.
"She's alive. Oh, can't you see that it always pays to believe the
best?"
"Alive! Safe!" Esteban whispered. His eyes, when he opened them, were
swimming; he clutched Norine's hand tightly; his other hand he extended
to O'Reilly. The latter was choking; his cheeks, too, were wet. "A
reconcentrado! In Matanzas! Well, that's good. We have friends
there--they'll not let her starve. This makes a new man of me. See! I'm
strong again. I'll go to her."
"YOU'LL go?" quickly cried Miss Evans. "YOU'LL go! You're not strong
enough. It would be suicide. You, with a price upon your head!
Everybody knows you there. Matanzas is virtually a walled city. There's
sickness, too--yellow fever, typhus--"
"Exactly. And hunger, also. Suppose no one has taken Rosa in? Those
concentration camps aren't nice places for a girl."
"But wait! I have friends in Washington. They're influential. They will
cable the American consul to look after her. Anyhow, you mustn't think
of returning to Matanzas," Norine faltered; her voice caught
unexpectedly and she turned her face away.
O'Reilly nodded shortly. "You're a sick man," he agreed. "There's no
need for both of us to go."
Esteban looked up. "Then you--"
"I leave at once. The Old Man has given me a commission to General
Betancourt, and I'll be on my way in an hour. The moon is young; I must
cross the trocha before--"
"That trocha!" Esteban was up on his elbow again. "Be careful there,
O'Reilly. They keep a sharp lookout, and it's guarded with barbed wire.
Be sure you cut every strand. Yes, and muffle your horse's hoofs, too,
in crossing the railroad track. That's how we were detected. Pablo's
horse struck a rail, and they fired at the sound. He fell at the first
volley, riddled. Oh, I know that trocha!"
"Damn the trocha!" O'Reilly exclaimed. "At last I've got a chance to DO
something. GOD! How long I've waited."
Esteban drew O'Reilly's tense form down and embraced his friend, after
the fashion of his people. "She has been waiting, too," he said,
huskily. "We Varonas are good waiters, O'Reilly. Rosa will never cease
waiting until you come. Tell her, for me--"
Norine withdrew softly out of earshot. There were a lump in her throat
and a pain in her breast. She had acquired a peculiar and affectionate
interest in this unhappy girl whom she had never seen, and she had
learned to respect O'Reilly's love. The yearning that had pulsed in his
voice a moment before had stirred her deeply; it awoke a throb in her
own bosom, for O'Reilly was dear to her. She wanted him to go, yet she
knew the hazards that lay in his way. If, indeed, the girl were in
Matanzas, how, Norine asked herself, was it possible for him to reach
her? That O'Reilly had some mad design was evident; that he would
utterly disregard his own safety she felt sure. But that he would meet
with failure, perhaps worse, seemed equally certain. Matanzas was a
beleagured city, and strangers could not enter or leave it at will. If
Rosa had not put herself behind prison walls, if she were still in
hiding somewhere on the island, it would be a simple matter to seek her
out. But Matanzas, of all places!
Then, too, the pacificos, according to all reports, were dying like
flies in the prison camps. Norine wondered if there might not be a
terrible heartache at the end of O'Reilly's quest? Her face was grave
and worried when, hearing him speak to her, she turned to take his
outstretched hand.
"You will be careful, won't you?" she implored. "And you'll be stout of
heart, no matter what occurs?"
He nodded. "It's a long way back here to Cubitas. You may not see or
hear from me again."
"I understand." She choked miserably. "You mean you may not come back.
Oh, Johnnie!"
"Tut, tut! We O'Reillys have more lives than a litter of cats. I mean I
may not see you until the war is over and we meet in New York. Well,
we've been good pals, and--I'm glad you came to Cuba." His grasp upon
her two hands was painful.
"You must go, I know, and I wouldn't try to keep you, but--" Norine
faltered, then impulsively she drew him down and kissed him full upon
the lips. "For Rosa!" she whispered. Her eyes were shining as she
watched him pass swiftly out of sight.
XXII
THE TROCHA
Of all the military measures employed by the Spaniards in their wars
against Cuban independence, perhaps the most unique was the
trocha--trench or traverse. Martinez Campos during the Ten Years' War
built the first trocha just west of the Cubitas Mountains where the
waist of the island is narrowest. It was Campos's hope, by means of
this artificial barrier, to confine the operations of the insurgents to
the eastern end of Cuba, but in that he failed, as likewise he failed
in the results gained by his efforts to concentrate the rural
population in the cities. Not until Weyler's time were these two
methods of pacification, the trocha and the concentration camp,
developed to their fullest extent. Under the rule of the Butcher
several trochas were constructed at selected points, and he carried to
its logical conclusion the policy of concentration, with results
sufficiently frightful to shock the world and to satisfy even Weyler's
monstrous appetite for cruelty. Although his trochas hindered the free
movement of Cuban troops and his prison camps decimated the peaceful
population of several provinces, the Spanish cause gained little. Both
trenches and prison camps became Spanish graveyards.
Weyler's intrenchments cost millions and were elaborately constructed,
belted with barbed wire, bristling with blockhouses and forts. In both
the digging and the manning, however, they cost uncounted lives.
Spanish spades turned up fevers with the soil, and, so long as raw
Spanish troops were compelled to toil in the steaming morasses or to
lie inactive under the sun and the rain, those traitor generals--June,
July, and August--continued to pile up the bodies in rotting heaps and
to timber the trenches with their bones. So long as the cities were
overcrowded with pacificos and their streets were putrid with disease,
so long did the Spanish garrisons sicken and die, as flies perish upon
poisoned carrion.
Out on the cool, clean hills and the windy savannas where the
Insurrectos dwelt there was health. Poorly armed, ragged, gaunt, these
Insurrectos were kept moving by hunger, always moving like cattle on a
barren range. But they were healthy, for disease, which is soft-footed
and tender-bellied, could not keep up.
At the time Johnnie O'Reilly set out for Matanzas the war--a war
without battle, without victory, without defeat--had settled into a
grim contest of endurance. In the east, where the Insurrectos were
practically supreme, there was food of a sort, but beyond the
Jucaro-Moron trocha--the old one of Campos's building--the country was
sick. Immediately west of it, in that district which the Cubans called
Las Villas, the land lay dying, while the entire provinces of Matanzas,
Habana, and Pinar del Rio were practically dead. These three were
skeletons, picked bare of flesh by Weyler's beak.
The Jucaro-Moron trocha had been greatly strengthened since Campos's
day. It followed the line of the transinsular railway. Dotted at every
quarter of a mile along the grade were little forts connected by
telephone and telegraph lines. Between these fortinas were sentry
stations of logs or railroad ties. The jungle on either side of the
right-of-way had been cleared, and from the remaining stumps and posts
and fallen tree-trunks hung a maze of barbed wire through which a man
could scarcely crawl, even in daylight. Eyes were keen, rifles were
ready, challenges were sharp, and countersigns were quickly given on
the Jucaro-Moron trocha.
In O'Reilly's party there were three men besides himself--the
ever-faithful Jacket, a wrinkled old Camagueyan who knew the bridle
trails of his province as a fox knows the tracks to its lair, and a
silent guajiro from farther west, detailed to accompany the expedition
because of his wide acquaintance with the devastated districts. Both
guides, having crossed the trocha more than once, affected to scorn its
terrors, and their easy confidence reassured O'Reilly in spite of
Esteban's parting admonition.
The American had not dreamed of taking Jacket along, but when he came
to announce his departure the boy had flatly refused to be left behind.
Jacket, in fact, had taken the matter entirely into his own hands and
had appealed directly to General Gomez. To his general the boy had
explained tearfully that patriotism was a rare and an admirable
quality, but that his love of country was not half so strong or so
sacred as his affection for Johnnie O'Reilly. Having attached himself
to the American for better or for worse, no human power could serve to
detach him, so he asserted. He threatened, moreover, that if he were
compelled to suffer his benefactor to go alone into the west he would
lay down his arms and permit General Gomez to free Cuba as best he
could. Cuba could go to Hades, so far as Jacket was concerned--he would
not lift a finger to save it. Strangely enough, Jacket's threat of
defection had not appalled General Gomez. In fact, with a dyspeptic
gruffness characteristic of him Gomez had ordered the boy off, under
penalty of a sound spanking. But Jacket had a will of his own, likewise
a temper. He greeted this unfeeling refusal with a noisy outburst of
mingled rage, grief, and defiance. Stamping his bare feet, sobbing, and
screaming, the boy finally flung himself upon the ground and smote it
with his fists, while tears streamed from his eyes. Nor could he be
silenced. He maintained such a hideous and surprising uproar, answering
Gomez's stern commands to be silent with such maniacal howls, that the
old soldier was finally glad to yield his consent, incidentally
consigning the rebellious youth to that perdition with which he had
threatened Cuba.
Having won his point, Jacket regained his composure with suspicious
suddenness and raced away to triumph over his beloved O'Reilly.
Fifty miles of hard riding brought the party to the trocha; they neared
it on the second morning after leaving Cubitas, and sought a secluded
camping-spot. Later in the day Hilario, the old Camagueyan, slipped
away to reconnoiter. He returned at twilight, but volunteered no report
of what he had discovered. After an insistent cross-examination
O'Reilly wrung from him the reluctant admission that everything seemed
favorable for a crossing some time that night, and that he had selected
a promising point. Beyond that the old man would say nothing. Johnnie
asked himself uneasily if this reticence was not really due to
apprehension rather than to sullenness. Whatever the cause, it was not
particularly reassuring, and as evening came on Johnnie found himself
growing decidedly nervous.
Supper, a simple meal, was quickly disposed of. Then followed a long,
dispiriting wait, for a gibbous moon rode high in the sky and the
guides refused to stir so long as it remained there. It was a still
night; in the jungle no air was stirring, and darkness brought forth a
torment of mosquitoes. As day died, the woods awoke to sounds of bird
and insect life; strange, raucous calls pealed forth, some familiar,
others strange and unaccustomed. There were thin whistlings, hoarse
grunts and harsh cacklings, high-pitched elfin laughter. Moving bodies
disturbed the leaves overhead; from all sides came the rustle and stir
of unseen creatures; sudden disputations were followed by startled
silences. Sitting there in the dark, bedeviled by a pest of insects,
mocked at by these mysterious voices, and looking forward to a
hazardous enterprise, O'Reilly began to curse his vivid imagination and
to envy the impassiveness of his companions. Even Jacket, he noted,
endured the strain better; the boy was cheerful, philosophical, quite
unimpressed by his surroundings. When the mosquitoes became unbearable
he put on his trousers, with some reluctance and much ceremony.
It seemed to O'Reilly that the moon floated motionless in the sky, and
more than once he was upon the point of ordering a start, but he
reflected that its radiance out in the open must be far greater than it
seemed here under the dense tropical foliage. After a time he began to
wonder if his guides were as loyal as they should be, if Hilario's
strange reticence was caused by sullenness, by apprehension, or by
something altogether different. Both of the men were strangers to him;
of their fidelity he had no guarantee. Now that his mind had become
engaged with thoughts of treachery, a determined effort was necessary
to keep himself in hand and O'Reilly fell back finally upon his
elemental trust in the Cuban character--scant consolation under the
circumstances.
Midnight brought a moist, warm breeze and a few formless clouds which
served at times to dimly obscure the moon. Watching the clouds,
O'Reilly hoped that they might prove to be the heralds of a storm. None
came. When the moon had finally crept down into the tree-tops old
Hilario stepped upon his cigarette, then began silently to saddle up.
The others followed with alacrity, and fell in behind him as he led the
way into the forest. They no longer ventured to speak aloud; nothing
but the occasional sound of a hoof striking upon root or stone, the
creak of leather, or the rustle of branches against passing bodies gave
evidence that mounted men were en route.
When they had covered a couple of miles Hilario reined in and the
others crowded close. Ahead, dimly discernible against the night sky,
there appeared to be a thinning of the woods. After listening for a
moment or two, Hilario dismounted and slipped away; the three riders
sat their saddles with ears strained. Once more the myriad voices of
the night became audible--the chirping of crickets, the strident call
of tree-toads, the whining undertone of the mosquitoes.
Hilario returned with word that all was well, and each man dismounted
to muffle the feet of his horse with rags and strips of gunny-sack
provided for the purpose. Then, one by one, they moved forward to the
edge of the clearing. The trocha lay before them.
After the cavernous obscurity of the jungle the night seemed suddenly
to lighten and O'Reilly found himself looking out over a level waste of
stumps and tree-trunks perhaps a quarter of a mile wide, extending
right and left as far as he could see. Against the luminous western
horizon opposite the inky forest stood like a wall. Midway of the
clearing there was a railroad grade with a telephone-pole or two limned
against the sky. The clearing was silent and to all appearances
deserted; nothing stirred, no sign of life appeared anywhere. And yet,
as the American studied the place, he had a queer, uncomfortable
sensation that it was thickly peopled and that eyes were peering out at
him from the gloom. Blurred forms took shape, phantom figures moved
along the embankment, stumps stirred.
O'Reilly felt a pair of reins thrust into his hand and found Hilario
examining a large pair of tinner's shears.
"Do you wish me to go with you?" he inquired of the guide.
The latter shook his head. "Antonio will go; he will keep watch while I
clear a path. If you hear or see anything--"
Jacket interrupted with a sibilant: "Psst! Look! Yonder!"
A lantern-like illumination had leaped out of the blackness and now
approached swiftly down the railroad grade.
O'Reilly laid a heavy hand upon the old Camagueyan and inquired in
sharp suspicion, "What does that mean--an alarm?"
There was a breathless moment during which the four men followed the
erratic course of the spark. Then Antonio chuckled. "Alabaos! A
light-bug," said he. "Don't you know a cucullo when you see one?" He
cautiously tested the ejector of his carbine and tightened the cord
that served as his belt.
O'Reilly drew a deep breath of relief. He had never become wholly
accustomed to the giant light-beetles of the tropics, although he had
carried one often on sentry duty to see the face of his watch, and not
infrequently had seen Cuban women wearing them in their hair as
ornaments.
"Jove!" he muttered. "It gave me a fright."
Hilario resumed his instructions: "If anything goes wrong, wait here.
Don't ride away until we have time--"
"Never fear. I won't desert you," the American reassured him.
The two white-clad figures slipped away, became indistinct, and then
disappeared. The night was hot, the mosquitoes hummed dismally and
settled in clouds upon the waiting pair, maddening them with their
poison. After a time a horse snorted and Jacket cursed nervously.
"I'd like to see where we are," the boy muttered.
"Do you know these men?" O'Reilly asked him.
"No. God deliver me from such unpleasant fellows."
"I hope they're honest."
"Humph! I trust nobody." There was a pause. "Never mind," Jacket
assured his companion. "I will make short work of them if they prove to
be traitors."
A half-hour passed, then the two ghostly figures materialized once more.
"Dios!" grumbled Hilario. "There are many strings to this Spanish
guitar. What a row when they discover that I have played a Cuban danzon
upon it." The old man seemed less surly than before, and O'Reilly felt
ashamed of his recent suspicions.
"Is the way clear?" he inquired.
"As far as the railroad, yes. We heard voices there, and came back. We
will have to cut our way forward after we cross the track. Now then,
follow me without a sound."
Leading his horse by the bit ring, Hilario moved out into the clearing,
followed once more by his three companions. Concealment was out of the
question now, for their only covering was the darkness. O'Reilly had
the uncomfortable feeling that the cavalcade bulked monstrous big and
must be visible at a great distance; he experienced much the sensations
of a man crossing a sheet of thin ice with nerves painfully strained,
awaiting the first menacing crack. In spite of all precautions the
animals made a tremendous racket, or so it seemed, and, despite
Hilario's twistings and turnings, it was impossible to avoid an
occasional loop of barbed wire, therefore flesh and clothing suffered
grievously. But at length the party brought up under the railroad
embankment and paused. Out of the voids to their right came a faint
murmur of voices. As carefully as might be the four men ascended the
slope, crossed the rails, and descended into the ditch on the other
side. Another moment and they encountered a taut strand of barbed wire.
The metallic snip of Hilario's shears sounded like a pistol-shot to
O'Reilly. Into the maze of strands they penetrated, yard by yard,
clipping and carefully laying back the wire as they went. Progress was
slow; they had to feel their way; the sharp barbs brought blood and
muttered profanity at every step.
None of the four ever knew what gave the alarm. Their first intimation
of discovery came with a startling "Quien vive?" hurled at them from
somewhere at their backs.
An instant and the challenge was followed by a Mauser shot. Other
reports rang out as the sentry emptied his rifle in their direction.
"So! They are shooting-bats," Hilario grunted.
Antonio swung about and cocked his Remington, but the other spoke
sharply. "Fool! If you shoot they will see the fire and riddle us. A
curse on the spider that spun this web!"
It was a test of courage to crouch among the charred stumps, enmeshed
in that cruel tangle of wire, while the night was stabbed by daggers of
fire and while the trocha awoke to the wild alarm. From somewhere in
the distance came a shouted command and the sound of running feet,
suddenly putting an end to further inaction. Antonio began to hack
viciously with his machete, in an effort to aid Hilario's labors. The
sound of his sturdy blows betrayed the party's whereabouts so clearly
that finally the older man could restrain himself no longer.
"Give it to them, compadres; it is a game that we can play."
O'Reilly had been gripping his rifle tensely, his heart in his throat,
his pulses pounding. As near a panic as he had ever been, he found,
oddly enough, that the mere act of throwing his weapon to his shoulder
and firing it calmed him. The kick of the gun subdued his excitement
and cleared his brain. He surprised himself by directing Jacket in a
cool, authoritative voice, to shoot low. When he had emptied the
magazine he led two of the horses forward. Then, grasping his own
machete, he joined in clearing a pathway.
It seemed an interminable time ere they extricated themselves from the
trap, but finally they succeeded and gained the welcome shelter of the
woods, pausing inside its shelter to cut the muffles from their horses'
feet. By this time the defenders of the trocha were pouring volley
after volley at random into the night.
Hilario sucked the cuts in his horny palms and spat forth the blood.
"If Gomez had the ammunition these fools are wasting he would free Cuba
in no time."
Now that the skirmish was over, Jacket began to boast of his part in it.
"Ha! Perhaps they'll know better than to show themselves the next time
I come this way," said he. "You saw me, didn't you? Well, I made a few
Spanish widows to-night."
"Not many, I'm afraid," O'Reilly laughed.
"Oh, believe me, I'm an old hand at this sort of thing. I shoot just as
well at night as I do in the daytime." This was literally true, and
when no one disputed his assertion Jacket proceeded further in praise
of himself, only to break off with a wordless cry of dismay.
"What's the matter?" Johnnie inquired.
"Look! Behold me!" wailed the hero. "I have left the half of my
beautiful trousers on that barbed wire!"
Antonio swung a leg over his saddle, saying: "Come along, amigos; we
have fifty leagues ahead of us. The war will be over while we stand
here gossiping."
XXIII
INTO THE CITY OF DEATH
O'Reilly's adventures on his swift ride through Las Villas have no part
in this story. It is only necessary to say that they were numerous and
varied, that O'Reilly experienced excitement aplenty, and that upon
more than one occasion he was forced to think and to act quickly in
order to avoid a clash with some roving guerrilla band. He had found it
imperative at all times to avoid the larger towns, for they, and in
fact most of the hamlets, were unsafe; hence the little party was
forced to follow back roads and obscure bridle trails. But the two
guides were never at a loss; they were resourceful, courageous, and at
no time did the American have reason to doubt their faithfulness.