plazas were congested with them, for no attempt was made to confine
them to their quarters. Morning brought them streaming down from the
suburban slopes where they lived, evening sent them winding back; their
days were spent in an aimless search for food. They snatched at crumbs
and combed the gutters for crusts. How they managed to exist, whence
came the food that kept life in their miserable bodies, was a mystery,
even to the citizens of the city; no organized effort had been made to
care for them and there was insufficient surplus food for half their
number. Yet somehow they lived and lingered on.
Of course the city was not entirely peopled by the starving--as a
matter of fact they formed scarcely one-fifth of the normal civil
population--and the life of the city was going on a good deal as usual.
Stores were open, at least there was a daily train from Habana, and the
barracks were full of Spanish troops. It was from off the wastage of
this normal population that these fifteen thousand prisoners were
forced to live. Even this wastage was woefully inadequate, merely
serving to prolong suffering by making starvation slower.
At the time of O'Reilly's arrival the sight presented by these innocent
victims of war was appalling; it roused in him a dull red rage at the
power which had wrought this crime and at the men who permitted it to
continue. Spain was a Christian nation, he reflected; she had set up
more crosses than any other, and yet beneath them she had butchered
more people than all the nations of the earth combined. This monstrous,
coldly calculating effort to destroy the entire Cuban people seemed to
him the blackest infamy of all, and he wondered if it would be allowed
to succeed.
Fortunately for the two friends, General Betancourt's generosity served
to relieve them from any immediate danger of starvation. After making a
few purchases and eating with the utmost frugality, they began their
search. Later, they stretched themselves out to sleep on the stones
beneath the portales of the railroad station.
They spent a horrid, harrowing night, for now the general distress was
brought home to them more poignantly than ever. At dawn they learned
that these people were actually dying of neglect. The faint light
betrayed the presence of new corpses lying upon the station flagstones.
From those still living, groans, sighs, sick mutterings rose until
O'Reilly finally dragged his youthful companion out of the place.
"I can't stand that," he confessed. "I can't sleep when people are
starving to death alongside of me. This money burns my pocket. I--I--"
Jacket read his purpose and laid a detaining hand upon his arm.
"It will save OUR lives, too," he said, simply.
"Bah! We are men. There are women and children yonder--"
But Jacket's sensibilities were calloused, it seemed. "Of what use
would your few pesetas be among so many?" he inquired. "God has willed
this, and He knows what He is doing. Besides, your 'pretty one' is
probably as hungry as are these people. No doubt we shall find that
she, too, is starving."
O'Reilly slowly withdrew his hand from his pocket. "Yes! It's Rosa's
money. But--come; I can't endure this."
He led the way back to the Plaza of Liberty and there on an iron bench
they waited for the full day. They were very tired, but further sleep
was impossible, for the death-wagons rumbled by on their way to collect
the bodies of those who had died during the night.
Neither the man nor the boy ever wholly lost the nightmare memory of
the next few days, for their search took them into every part of the
reconcentrado districts. What they beheld aged them. Day after day,
from dawn till dark, they wandered, peering into huts, staring into
faces, asking questions until they were faint from fatigue and sick
with disappointment.
As time passed and they failed to find Rosa Varona a terrible
apprehension began to weigh O'Reilly down; his face grew old and drawn,
his shoulders sagged, his limbs began to drag. It was all that Jacket
could do to keep him going. The boy, now that there was actual need of
him, proved a perfect jewel; his optimism never failed, his faith never
faltered, and O'Reilly began to feel a dumb gratitude at having the
youngster by his side.
Jacket, too, became thin and gray about the lips. But he complained not
at all and he laughed a great deal. To him the morrow was always
another day of brilliant promise toward which he looked with
never-failing eagerness; and not for a single moment did he question
the ultimate success of their endeavor. Such an example did much for
the older man. Together they practised the strictest, harshest economy,
living on a few cents a day, while they methodically searched the city
from limit to limit.
At first O'Reilly concerned himself more than a little with the problem
of escape, but as time wore on he thought less and less about that. Nor
did he have occasion to waste further concern regarding his disguise.
That it was perfect he proved when several of his former acquaintances
passed him by and when, upon one occasion, he came face to face with
old Don Mario de Castano. Don Mario had changed; he was older, his
flesh had softened, and it hung loosely upon his form. He appeared
worried, harassed, and O'Reilly recalled rumors that the war had ruined
him. The man's air of dejection seemed to bear out the story.
They had been enemies, nevertheless O'Reilly felt a sudden impulse to
make himself known to the Spaniard and to appeal directly for news of
Rosa's fate. But Don Mario, he remembered in time, had a reputation for
vindictiveness, so he smothered the desire. One other encounter
O'Reilly had reason to remember.
It so chanced that one day he and Jacket found themselves in the
miserable rabble which assembled at the railroad station to implore
alms from the incoming passengers of the Habana train. Few people were
traveling these days, and they were, for the most part, Spanish
officers to whom the sight of starving country people was no novelty.
Now and then, however, there did arrive visitors from whom the
spectacle of so much wretchedness wrung a contribution, hence there was
always an expectant throng at the depot. On this occasion O'Reilly was
surprised to hear the piteous whines for charity in the name of God
turn suddenly into a subdued but vicious mutter of rage. Hisses were
intermingled with vituperations, then the crowd fell strangely silent,
parting to allow the passage of a great, thick-set man in the uniform
of a Colonel of Volunteers. The fellow was unusually swarthy and he
wore a black scowl upon his face, while a long puckering scar the full
length of one cheek lifted his mouth into a crooked sneer and left
exposed a glimpse of wolfish teeth.
O'Reilly was at a loss to fathom this sudden alteration of attitude,
the whistle of indrawn breaths and the whispered curses, until he heard
some one mutter the name, "Cobo." Then indeed he started and stiffened
in his tracks. He fixed a fascinated stare upon the fellow.
Colonel Cobo seemed no little pleased by the reception he created. With
his chest arched and his black eyes gleaming malevolently he swaggered
through the press, clicking his heels noisily upon the stone flags.
When he had gone Jacket voiced a vicious oath.
"So that is the butcher of babies!" exclaimed the boy. "Well, now, I
should enjoy cutting his heart out."
O'Reilly's emotions were not entirely unlike those of his small
companion. His lips became dry and white as he tried to speak.
"What a brute! That face--Ugh!"
He found himself shaking weakly, and discovered that a new and wholly
unaccountable feeling of discouragement had settled upon him. He tried
manfully to shake it off, but somehow failed, for the sight of Rosa's
arch-enemy and the man's overbearing personality had affected him
queerly. Cobo's air of confidence and authority seemed to emphasize
O'Reilly's impotence and bring it forcibly home to him. To think of his
lustful persecution of Rosa Varona, moreover, terrified him. The next
day he resumed his hut-to-hut search, but with a listlessness that came
from a firm conviction that once again he was too late.
That afternoon found the two friends among the miserable hovels which
encircled the foot of La Cumbre, about the only quarter they had not
explored. Below lay San Severino, the execution-place; above was the
site of the old Verona home. More than once on his way about the city
O'Reilly had lifted his eyes in the direction of the latter, feeling a
great hunger to revisit the scene of his last farewell to Rosa, but
through fear of the melancholy effect it would have upon him he had
thus far resisted the impulse. To-day, however, he could no longer
fight the morbid desire and so, in spite of Jacket's protest at the
useless expenditure of effort, he set out to climb the hill. Of course
the boy would not let him go alone.
Little was said during the ascent. The La Cumbre road seemed very long
and very steep. How different the last time O'Reilly had swung up it!
The climb had never before tired him as it did now, and he reasoned
that hunger must have weakened him even more than he realized. Jacket
felt the exertion, too; he was short of breath and he rested
frequently. O'Reilly saw that the boy's bare, brown legs had grown bony
since he had last noticed them, and he felt a sudden pang at having
brought the little fellow into such a plight as this.
"Well, hombre," he said when they paused to rest, "I'm afraid we came
too late. I'm afraid we're licked."
Jacket nodded listlessly; his optimism, too, was gone. "They must all
be dead or we would have found them before this," said he. When
O'Reilly made no answer he continued, "It is time we thought of getting
away from here, eh?"
Johnnie was sitting with his face in his hands. Without lifting his
head he inquired: "How are we going to get away? It is easy enough to
get into Matanzas, but--" He shrugged hopelessly.
From where the two sat they could see on the opposite hillside a
section of the ditch and the high barbed-wire fence which girdled the
city and made of it a huge corral. Spaced at regular intervals along
the intrenchments were slow-moving, diminutive figures, sentries on
their well-worn paths.
Jacket brightened at the thought of escape. "Ho! I'll bet we can find a
hole somewhere," said he. "We're not like these others. They haven't
the spirit to try." There was a moment of silence, and then: "Caramba!
You remember those jutias we ate? They were strong, but I would enjoy
the smell of one now. Eh? Another week of this and we shall be living
on garbage like the rest of these poor people."
Leaving Jacket to take his time, Johnnie completed the climb alone,
meditating upon the boy's words. "The spirit to try!" Where had his
spirit gone, he wondered. Perhaps it had been crushed beneath the
weight of misery he had beheld; surely he had seen enough. Hourly
contact with sickness and misfortune on such a gigantic scale was
enough to chill any one's hopes, and although his sensibilities had
been dulled, his apprehensions had been quickened hour by hour. Now
that he looked the matter squarely in the face, it seemed absurd to
believe that a tender girl like Rosa Varona could long have withstood
the hardships of this hideous place; stronger people than she had
succumbed, by the hundreds. Even now the hospitals were full, the sick
lay untended in their hovels. No one, so far as O'Reilly knew, had
undertaken to estimate how fast they were dying or the number of dead
which had already ridden out of Matanzas in those rumbling wagons, but
there were many. What chance was there that Rosa had not been among the
latter? Better by far had she remained among the empty fields and the
barren slopes of the Pan de Matanzas, for there at least the soil held
roots and the trees bore fruits or berries, while here was nothing but
gaunt famine and grinning disease.
As he breasted the summit of La Cumbre, O'Reilly beheld at some
distance a bent figure of want. It was a negro woman, grubbing in the
earth with a sharpened stick. After a suspicious scrutiny of him she
resumed her digging.
Nothing but a heap of stones and plaster remained of the Varona home.
The grounds, once beautiful even when neglected as in Dona Isabel's
time, were now a scene of total desolation. A few orange-trees, to be
sure, remained standing, and although they were cool and green to look
at, they carried no fruit and the odor of their blooms was a trial and
a mockery to the hungry visitor. The evidences of Cueto's vandalism
affected O'Reilly deeply; they brought him memories more painful than
he had anticipated. Although the place was well-nigh unrecognizable,
nevertheless it cried aloud of Rosa, and the unhappy lover could barely
control the emotions it awakened. It was indeed a morbid impulse which
had brought him thither, but now that he was here he could not leave.
Unconsciously his feet turned toward the ancient quarry which had
formed the sunken garden--his and Rosa's trysting-place.
O'Reilly desired above all things to be alone at this moment, and so he
was annoyed to discover that another person was before him--a woman,
evidently some miserable pacifico like himself. She, too, appeared to
be looking for roots, and he almost stumbled over her as he brushed
through the guava-bushes fringing the depression.
His sudden appearance alarmed the creature and she struggled,
panic-stricken, out of his path. Her rags could not conceal the fact
that she was deformed, that her back was crooked, so he muttered a
reassuring word to her.
This place was more as he had left it--there was the stone bench where
he had said good-by to Rosa; yonder was the well--
"Senor!" Johnnie heard himself addressed by the hunch-backed woman. Her
voice was thin, tremulous, eager, but his thoughts were busy and he
paid no heed. "Senor! Do you look for something--some one--"
"N-no. Yes--" he answered, abstractedly. "Yes, I am looking for
something--some one."
"Something you have lost?"
"Something I have lost!" The question came to him faintly, but it was
so in tune with his unhappy mood that it affected him strangely. He
found that his eyes were blurring and that an aching lump had risen
into his throat. This was the breaking-point.
O'Reilly's hearing, too, was going wrong, for he imagined that some one
whispered his name. God! This place was not dead--it was
alive--terribly alive with memories, voices, a presence unseen yet
real. He laid hold of the nearest bush to steady himself, he closed his
eyes, only to hear his name spoken louder:
"O'Rail-ye!"
Johnnie brushed the tears from his lashes. He turned, he listened, but
there was no one to be seen, no one, that is, except the dusky cripple
who had straightened herself and was facing him, poised uncertainly. He
looked at her a second time, then the world began to spin dizzily and
he groped his way toward her. He peered again, closer, for everything
before his eyes was swimming.
The woman was thin--little more than a skeleton--and so frail that the
wind appeared to sway her, but her face, uplifted to the sun, was
glorified. O'Reilly stood rooted, staring at her until she opened her
eyes, then he voiced a great cry:
"ROSA!" What more he said he never knew ...
He took the misshapen figure into his arms, he rained kisses upon the
pinched, discolored face. But Rosa did not respond; her puny strength
had flown and she lay inert in his embrace, scarcely breathing. Tears
stole down her cheeks and very faintly her fingers fluttered over his
bearded cheeks.
Dazed, doubting, astounded, it was some time before Johnnie could
convince himself of the reality of this moment, and even then words did
not come to him, for his mind was in turmoil. Joy, thanksgiving,
compassion--a thousand emotions--mingled in a sort of delirium, too
wild for coherent thought or speech.
Fear finally brought him to his senses, for he became aware that Rosa
had collapsed and that his endearments left her unthrilled. Quickly he
bore her to the bench and laid her upon it. After a time she smiled up
into his eyes and her words were scarcely more than a murmur:
"God heard my prayers and sent you to me."
"Rosa! You are ill, you are weak--"
Her eyelids fluttered. "I am dying, O'Rail-ye. I only waited to see
you."
"No, no!" In agony he gathered her once more into his arms.
"Oh yes!" Her bloodless fingers touched his face again, then his thin,
worn rags. "You, too, have suffered. How came you to be so poor and
hungry, O'Rail-ye?"
"I'm not poor, I'm rich. See!" He jingled the coins in his pocket.
"That's money; money for you, sweet-heart. It will buy you food and
medicine, it will make you well and strong again. Rosa, dear, I have
looked for you so long, so long--" His voice broke wretchedly and he
bowed his head. "I--I was afraid--"
"I waited as long as I had strength to wait," she told him. "It is too
bad you came so late."
Once again she lapsed into the lethargy of utter weakness, whereupon he
fell to stroking her hands, calling upon her to come back to him. He
was beside himself now; a terrible feeling of impotence and despair
overcame him.
Hearing some one speak, he raised his eyes and discovered at his side
that figure of want which he had seen digging on the slope below. It
was Evangelina. The negress was little more than skin and bones, her
eyes were bleared and yellow and sunken, her face had grown ape-like,
but he recognized her and she him.
"You are the American," she declared. "You are Rosa's man."
"Yes. But what is wrong with her? Look! She is ill--"
"She is often like that. It is the hunger. We have nothing to eat,
senor. I, too, am ill--dying; and Asensio--Oh, you don't know how they
have made us suffer."
"We must get Rosa home. Where do you live?"
Evangelina turned her death's head toward the city. "Down yonder. But
what's the use? There is no food in our house and Rosa is afraid of
those wagons. You know--the ones with the corpses. She made me bring
her here to die."
The girl was not wholly unconscious, it seemed, for she stirred and
murmured, faintly: "Those wagons! Don't let them put me in there with
the other dead. They pile the bodies high--" A weak shudder convulsed
her.
O'Reilly bent lower, and in a strong, determined voice cried: "You are
not going to die. I have money for food. Rouse yourself, Rosa, rouse
yourself."
"She prayed for you every night," the negress volunteered. "Such faith!
Such trust! She never doubted that you would come and find her.
Sometimes she cried, but that was because of her brother. Esteban, you
know, is dead. Yes, dead, like all the rest."
"Esteban is NOT dead," O'Reilly asserted. "He is alive. Rosa, do you
hear that? Esteban is alive and well. I left him with Gomez in the
Orient. I have come to take you to him."
"Esteban alive? Ha! You are fooling us." Evangelina wagged her head
wisely. "We know better than that."
"I tell you he IS alive," O'Reilly insisted. He heard. Jacket calling
to him at that moment, so he hallooed to the boy; then when the latter
had arrived he explained briefly, without allowing Jacket time in which
to express his amazement:
"Our search is over; we have found them. But they won't believe that
Esteban is alive. Tell them the truth."
"Yes, he is alive. We found him rotting in a prison and we rescued
him," Jacket corroborated. He stared curiously at the recumbent figure
on the bench, then at O'Reilly. He puckered his lips and gave vent to a
low whistle of amazement. "So. This is your pretty one, eh?
I--She--Well, I don't think much of her. But then, you are not so
handsome yourself, are you?"
Evangelina seemed to be stupid, a trifle touched, perhaps, from
suffering, for she laid a skinny claw upon O'Reilly's shoulder and
warned him earnestly: "Look out for Cobo. You have heard about him, eh?
Well, he is the cause of all our misery. He hunted us from place to
place, and it was for him that I put that hump on her back. Understand
me, she is straight--straight and pretty enough for any American. Her
skin is like milk, too, and her hair--she used to put flowers in it for
you, and then we would play games. But you never came. You will make
allowances for her looks, will you not?"
"Poor Rosa! You two poor creatures!" O'Reilly choked; he hid his face
upon his sweetheart's breast.
Rosa responded; her fingers caressed him and she sighed contentedly.
O'Reilly's ascent of the hill had been slow, but his descent was
infinitely slower, for Rosa was so feeble that she could help herself
but little and he lacked the strength to carry her far at a time.
Finally, however, they reached the wretched hovel where Asensio lay,
then leaving her there, Johnnie sped on alone into the city. He
returned soon with several small bundles concealed about his person,
and with Evangelina's help he set about preparing food.
Neither Rosa nor the two negroes had any appetite--their hunger had
long since passed the point at which they were conscious of it--and
O'Reilly was compelled to force them to eat. When he had given them all
that he dared he offered what food was left to Jacket.
The boy moistened his lips and his fingers twitched, but he shook his
head.
"Oh, I'm not so hungry," he declared, indifferently. "I have a friend
in the market-place; I will go down there and steal a fish from him."
O'Reilly patted him on the shoulder, saying: "You are a good kid, and
you understand, don't you? These sick people will need more food than
we can buy for them, so we will have to draw our belts tight."
"Of course. Eating is a habit, anyhow, and we men know how to get along
without it. I will manage to find something for you and me, for I'm a
prodigious thief. I can steal the hair from a man's head when I try."
With a nod he set off to find his benefactor's supper.
Jacket whistled heroically until he was out of O'Reilly's hearing, then
his bearing changed. His mouth drew down, and moisture came into his
eyes. He rubbed a grimy hand over his stomach, murmuring, faintly:
"Cristo! It is hard to be a man when you smell things cooking!"
XXV
THE HAUNTED GARDEN
Rosa Varona did not die. On the contrary, under her lover's care she
made so amazingly swift a recovery that improvement was visible from
hour to hour; she rallied like a wilted flower under a refreshing rain.
It was O'Reilly's presence as much as the nourishing diet provided by
his money which effected this marvel, although the certainty that
Esteban was alive and safe put added force into her determination to
live. Rosa found hope springing up in her breast, and one day she
caught herself laughing. The marvel of it was unbelievable. O'Reilly
was sitting beside her bed of leaves at the time; impulsively she
pressed his hand to her lips, repeating a question she had asked him
many times:
"Do you love me?"
For answer he bent and kissed her. What he said was of no consequence.
Rosa held his hand against her cheek, at a loss for words with which to
voice her gladness.
"Such happiness as mine belongs in heaven," she managed to tell him.
"Sometimes it frightens me. With you by my side this prison is a
paradise and I want for nothing. War, suffering, distress--I can't
imagine they longer exist."
"Nevertheless, they do, and Matanzas is anything but a paradise," said
he. "It is--hell, and we must set about quickly to get out of it."
"Escape, do you mean? But that is impossible. Asensio can tell you all
about that. The Spaniards used to issue passes for the men to go
outside the lines in search of food. It was just a trick. They never
came back--all of them were killed. Every one knows better than to try,
now."
"Nevertheless, we can't stay here much longer." In answer to the girl's
puzzled inquiry he explained: "My money is gone--all but a few cents.
This is the last of our food and there is no chance of getting more.
Jacket has some mysterious source of supply and he manages to bring in
something every now and then, but there are five of us to feed, and he
can't furnish more than enough for himself. No, we must make a move at
once, while we have the strength."
Rosa had not asked the source whence came the blessed food which was
bringing the life blood back into her body, and although that food was
not much--a little meal, a plantain, an occasional scrap of meat or
fish--it had never occurred to her that the supply might be limited.
She met the problem bravely, however.
"I have been close to death so long that it means little to me," she
confessed. "I have you, and--well, with you at my side I can face the
worst."