IN THE NIGHT.
Rita drew a long breath as she folded her letter. She was in a fine glow
of mingled affection and patriotic fervour; it had been a great relief
to pour it all out in Margaret's sympathetic ear, though that ear were a
thousand miles away. Now she really must go to bed. It was one o'clock,
her watch told her. It seemed wicked, profane, to sleep under such
moonlight as this; but still, the body must be preserved.
"But first," she said to herself, "I must have a drop of water; writing
so long has made me thirsty."
She took up the earthen water-jar, but found it empty. Pepe had for once
been faithless; indeed, neither he nor Manuela had escaped the witchery
of the full moon, and she had had little good of them that whole
evening. She glanced at the corner where Manuela lay; the light, regular
breathing told that the girl was sound asleep. It would be a pity to
wake her from her first sweet sleep, poor Manuela. A year, perhaps a
month ago, Rita would not have hesitated an instant; but now she
murmured, "Sleep, little one! I myself will fetch the water."
She stepped out into the moonlight, with the jar in her hand. All was
still as sleep itself. No sound or motion from huts or tent. Under the
palms lay a number of brown bundles, motionless. Dry leaves, piled
together for burning? no! soldiers of Cuba, wrapped in such covering as
they could find, taking their rest. Alone, beside a little heap of twigs
that still smouldered, the sentry sat; his back was turned to her.
Should she speak to him, and ask him to go to the spring for her? No;
how much more interesting to go herself! Everything looked so different
in this magic light; it was a whole new world, the moon's fairyland; who
knew what wonderful sights might meet her eyes? Besides, her old nurse
used to say that water drawn from a pure spring under the full moon
produced a matchless purity of the complexion. Her complexion was well
enough, perhaps, but still--and anyhow, it would be an adventure,
however small a one.
The girl's feet, in their soft leather slippers, made no sound on the
bare earth. The sentry did not turn his head. Silent as a cloud, she
stole across the little glade, and passed under the trees at the farther
end. Here the ground broke off suddenly in a rocky pitch, down which one
scrambled to another valley or glen lying some hundred feet lower; the
cliff (for it was steep enough to merit that name) was mostly bare rock,
but here and there a little earth had caught and lodged, and a few
seeds had dropped, and a tuft of grass or a little tree had sprung up,
defying the gulf below. A few feet only from the upper level, just below
a group of palms that nodded over the brink, the stream gushed out from
the face of the rock, clear and cold. The soldiers had hollowed a little
trough to receive the trickling stream, and one had only to hold one's
pitcher under this spout for a few minutes, to have it filled with
delicious water. Rita had often come hither in the daytime, during the
week that had now passed since her arrival at the mountain camp. It was
a wild and picturesque scene at any time, but now the effect of the
intense white light, falling on splintered rock, hanging tree, and
glancing stream was magical indeed. Rita lay down on her face at the
edge of the precipice, as she had seen the soldiers do, and lowered her
jar carefully. As the water gurgled placidly into the jar, her eyes
roved here and there, taking in every detail of the marvellous scene
before her. Never, she thought, had she seen anything so beautiful, so
unearthly in its loveliness. Peace! silver peace, and silence, the
silence of--hark! what was that?
A crack, as of a twig breaking; a rustling, far below in the gorge; a
shuffling sound, as of soft shod feet pressing the soft earth. Rita
crouched flat to the ground, and, leaning over as far as she dared,
peered over the precipice. The bottom of the gorge was filled with a
mass of tall grasses and feathery blossoming shrubs, with here and there
a tree rising tall and straight. The leaves were black as jet in the
strong light. Gazing intently, she saw the branches tremble, wave,
separate; and against the dark leaves shone a gleam of metal, that
moved, and came nearer. Another and yet another; and now she could see
the dark faces, and the moon shone on the barrels of the carbines, and
made them glitter like silver.
Swiftly and noiselessly the girl drew back from the brink, crouching in
the grass till she reached the shadow of the grove. Then she rose to her
feet, still holding her jar of water carefully,--for there was no need
of wasting that,--and ran for her life.
A whispered word to the sentry, who sprang quickly enough from his
reverie beside the fire; then to the General's tent, then to Carlos,
with the same whispered message. "The Gringos are here! Wake, for the
love of Heaven!"
In another moment the little glade was alive with dusky figures,
springing from their beds of moss and leaves, snatching their arms,
fumbling for cartridges. The General was already among them. Carlos and
the other officers came running, buckling their sword-belts, rubbing
their eyes.
"Where are they?" all were asking in excited whispers. "Who saw them? Is
it another nightmare of Pepe's?"
"No! no!" murmured Rita. "I saw them, I tell you! I saw their faces in
the moonlight. I went to get some water. They are climbing up the cliff.
I did not stop to count, but there must be many of them, from the sound
of their feet. Oh, make haste, make haste!"
The General gave his orders in a low, emphatic tone. Twenty men, with
Carlos at their head, glided like shadows across the glade, and
disappeared among the trees. Rita's breath came quick, and she prepared
to follow; but the old General laid a kind hand on her arm. "No, my
child!" he said. "You have done your country a great service this night.
Do not imperil your life needlessly. Go rather to your room, and pray
for your brother and for us all."
But prayer was far from Rita's thoughts at that moment. "Dear General,"
she implored, with clasped hands, the tears starting to her eyes, "Let
me go! let me go! I implore you! I will pray afterward, I truly will. I
will pray while I am fighting, if you will only let me go. See! I have
come all this way to fight for my country; and must I stay away from the
first battle? Look, dear Senor General! Look at my machete! Isn't it
beautiful? it is the sword of a hero; I must use it for him. Let me go!"
The beautiful face, upturned in the moonlight, the dark eyes shining
through their tears, might have softened a harder heart than that of
General Sevillo. He opened his lips to reply, his fatherly hand still on
her arm, when suddenly a sharp report was heard. A single shot, then a
volley, the shots rattling out, struck back and forth from cliff to
cliff, multiplying in hideous echoes. Then broke out cries and groans;
the crash of heavy bodies falling back among the trees below, and shouts
of "_Viva Cuba_;" and still the shots rang out, and still the echoes
cracked and snapped. Rita turned pale as death, and clasped her hands
on her bosom. "_Ah!_ _Dios!_" she cried. "I had forgotten; there will be
blood!" and rushing into her hut, she flung herself face downward on her
leafy bed.
The perplexed General looked after her for a moment, pulling his
grizzled moustache. "_Caramba!_" he muttered. "To understand these
feminines? Decidedly, this charming child must be sent into safety
to-morrow." And shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, he strode
in the direction of the firing.
Ten minutes' sharp fighting, and the skirmish was over. The Spanish
"guerilla" was scattered, many of the guerilleros lying dead or wounded
at the foot of the precipice, the others scrambling and tumbling down as
best they might. Carlos and his men had so greatly the advantage in
position, if not in numbers, that not a single Cuban was killed, though
two or three were more or less seriously wounded. Among these was the
unfortunate Pedro Valdez, who had only that evening returned to camp,
having left his child and his old mother in a place of safety. His wife
had been allowed to remain for a short time in camp, at the request of
the surgeon, as she had had some experience in nursing. Now he was shot
in the arm, and his comrades lifted him gently, and carried him back.
His wife was waiting for him. She seemed to have expected something of
the kind, for she made no outcry; she followed quietly to the clump of
trees distant a little way from the rest of the camp, where good Doctor
Ferrando had the solitary rancho, the case of surgical instruments and
the few rolls of bandages that constituted his field hospital. A rough
table had been knocked together for operations; otherwise the sick and
wounded fared much as the rest did, sleeping on beds of leaves and dry
grass, and fighting the mosquitoes as best they might. Here the bearers
laid Pedro down, and Dolores took her place quietly at his side,
fanning away the insects that hovered in clouds about the wounded man,
holding the poor arm while the doctor dressed it, and behaving as if her
life had been spent in a hospital.
Doctor Ferrando spoke a few words of approval, but the woman heeded them
little; it was a matter of course that where there was suffering, she
should be at work. So, when Pedro presently dropped off to sleep, she
moved softly about among the wounded men, smoothing a blanket here,
changing a ligature there, doing all with light, swift fingers whose
touch healed instead of hurting.
She was sitting beside a lad, the last to be brought in from the scene
of the skirmish, when the screen of bushes by the rancho was parted, and
Rita appeared. Slowly and timidly she drew near; her face was like
marble; her eyes looked unnaturally large and dark. Dolores made a
motion to rise, but a gesture bade her keep her place.
"Hush!" said the young girl. "Sit still, Dolores! I have come--to--to
learn!"
"To learn, senorita?" repeated the woman, humbly. The senorita was in
her grateful eyes a heaven-descended being, whose every look and word
must be law; this new bearing amazed and puzzled her.
"What can this poor soul teach the noble and high-born lady?" she asked,
sadly. "I know nothing, not even to read; I am a poor woman merely. The
senor doctor is this moment gone to take his distinguished siesta; do I
call him for the senorita?"
Rita shook her head, and crept nearer, gazing with wide eyes of fear at
the prostrate form beside which Dolores was sitting.
[Illustration: "'HUSH!' SAID THE YOUNG GIRL. 'SIT STILL.'"]
"See, Dolores!" she said; and her tone was as humble as the woman's own.
"I must learn--to take care of him--of them!" She nodded at the
sufferer. "All my life, you see, I could never bear the sight of blood.
To cut my finger, I fainted at the instant. Always they said, 'Poor
child! it is her delicacy, her sensibility;' they praised me; I thought
it a fine thing, to faint, to turn pale at the word even. Now--oh,
Dolores, do you see? I desire to help my country, my brother, all the
heroes who are risking their life, are shedding their--their blood--for
Cuba. I think I can fight; I forget; I see only the bright shining
blades, the victorious banners; I forget that these heroes must bleed,
that this horrible blood must flow in streams, in torrents, that oceans
of it must overwhelm us, the defenders of my country. _Ay de mi!_ I
begged the General even now to let me fight, to let me stand beside my
Carlos, and wield my beautiful machete. Suddenly, Dolores--I heard the
shots; I heard--terrible sounds! screams--oh, Dios!--screams of men,
perhaps of my own brother, in anguish. All at once it came over me--I
cannot tell you--I saw it all, the blood, the wounds, the horror to
death. I awoke from my dreams; I was a child, do you see, Dolores? I
was a child, playing at war, and thinking--thinking the thoughts of a
silly, silly child. Now I am awake; now I know--what--what war means.
So--I am foolish, but I can learn; I think I can learn. You are a brave
woman; I have been watching you through the leaves for half an hour. I
saw you--I saw you change those cloths; those terrible bloody cloths on
that poor man's head. At first my eyes turned round, I saw black only;
but I opened them again, I fixed them on what you held, I watched. Now I
can bear quite well to look at it. Help me, Dolores! teach me--to help
as you help; teach me to care for these brothers, as you do."
Dolores looked earnestly in the beautiful young face. In spite of the
deadly pallor, she saw that the girl was fully herself, was calm and
determined. With a simple, noble gesture she lifted Rita's slender hand
to her lips, saying merely: "This hand shall bring blessing to many!
come, my senorita, and see! it is so easy, when once one knows the way
of it."
Very gently the poor peasant's wife showed the rich man's daughter the A
B C of woman's work among the sick and suffering. At first Rita could do
little more than control her own nerves, and fight down the faintness
that came creeping over her at sight of the bandaged faces, ghastly
under the brown, of the torn flesh and nerveless limbs. Gradually,
however, she began to gain strength. The rough brown hand moved so
easily, so lightly; it laid hold of those terrible bandages as if they
were mere ordinary bits of linen. Surely now, she, Rita, could do that
too. As Dolores took a cloth from her husband's head, the girl's hand
was outstretched, took it quietly, and handed a fresh one to the nurse.
The cloth she took was covered with red stains. For a moment Rita's head
swam, and the world seemed to turn dark before her eyes; but she held
the thing firmly, till her sight cleared again; then dropped it in the
tub of water that stood ready, and taking up the fan of green palm-leaf,
swept it steadily to and fro, driving the clouds of flies and mosquitoes
away from the sufferer.
Coming back from his siesta half an hour later, good Doctor Ferrando
paused a moment at the entrance of the hospital grove. There were two
nurses now; the good man gazed in astonishment at the slender figure
kneeling beside one of the rough cots, fanning the wounded man, and
singing in a low, sweet voice, a song of Cuba. Several of the men were
awake, and gazing at her with delight. Dolores, with a look of quiet
happiness on her face, sat beside the bed where her husband was sleeping
peacefully. "Come!" said the doctor, "war, after all, has its beauty as
well as its terror. Observe this heavenly sight, you benevolent saints!"
he waved his cigar upward, inviting the attention of all attendant
spirits. "Consider this lovely child, awakened to the holiness of
womanhood! and the General will destroy all this to-morrow, from respect
for worldly conventions! He is without doubt right; yet, what a pity!"