Rainbow's End Part 23

The day arrived when her brain was normal and when she could creep about the hut. But she was only the ghost of the girl she had been; she seldom spoke, and she never smiled. She sat for hours staring out into the sunshine, and when she found tears upon her cheeks she was surprised, for it seemed to her that she must long ago have shed the very last.

Asensio, likewise recovered, but he, too, was sadly changed. There was no longer any martial spirit in him; he feared the Spaniards, and tales of their atrocities cowed him.

Then Cobo came into the Yumuri. The valley, already well-nigh deserted, was filled to the brim with smoke from burning fields and houses, and through it the sun showed like a copper shield. Refugees pa.s.sed the bohio, bound farther into the hills, and Asensio told the two women that he and they must also go. So the three gathered up what few things they could carry on their backs and fled.

They did not stop until they had gained the fastnesses of the Pan de Matanzas. Here they built a shelter and again took up the problem of living, which was now more difficult than ever.

Asensio would not have been greatly inconvenienced by the change had he been alone, for certain fruits grew wild in the forests, and the earth, where the Spaniards had not trod, was full of roots upon which a creature of his primitive habits could have managed to live. But hampered as he was by two women, one of whom was as delicate as a flower, Asensio found his task extremely difficult. And it grew daily more difficult; for there were other people here in the woods, and, moreover, the country round about was being steadily scoured by the enemy, who had orders to destroy every living, growing thing that was capable of sustaining human life. Stock was butchered and left to rot, trees were cut down, root-fields burned. Weyler's policy of frightfulness was in full sway, and starvation was driving its reluctant victims into his net. Meanwhile roving bands of guerrillas searched out and killed the stronger and the more tenacious families.

The Pan de Matanzas, so called because of its resemblance to a mighty loaf of bread, became a mockery to the hungry people cowering in its shelter. Bread! Rosa Varona could not remember when she had last tasted such a luxury. Raw cane, cocoanuts, the tasteless fruita bomba, roots, the pith from palm tops, these were her articles of diet, and she did not thrive upon them. She was always more or less hungry. She was ragged, too, and she shivered miserably through the long, chill nights.

Rosa could measure the change in her appearance only by studying her reflection from the surface of the spring where she drew water, but she could see that she had become very thin, and she judged that the color had entirely gone from her cheeks. It saddened her, for O'Reilly's sake.

Time came when Asensio spoke of giving up the struggle and going in.

They were gradually starving, he said, and Rosa was ill; the risk of discovery was ever present. It was better to go while they had the strength than slowly but surely to perish here. He had heard that there were twenty thousand reconcentrados in Matanzas; in such a crowd they could easily manage to hide themselves; they would at least be fed along with the others.

No one had told Asensio that the Government was leaving its prisoners to shift for themselves, supplying them with not a pound of food nor a square inch of shelter.

Evangelina at first demurred to this idea, declaring that Rosa would never be allowed to reach the city, since the roads were patrolled by lawless bands of troops. Nevertheless her husband continued to argue.

Rosa herself took no part in the discussion, for it did not greatly matter to her whether she stayed or went.

Misery bred desperation at last; Evangelina's courage failed her, and she allowed herself to be won over. She began her preparations by disguising Rosa. Gathering herbs and berries, she made a stain with which she colored the girl's face and body, then she sewed a bundle of leaves into the back of Rosa's waist so that when the latter stooped her shoulders and walked with a stick her appearance of deformity was complete.

On the night before their departure Rosa Varona prayed long and earnestly, asking little for herself, but much for the two black people who had suffered so much for her. She prayed also that O'Reilly would come before it was too late.

XIV

A WOMAN WITH A MISSION

Within a few hours after O'Reilly's return to New York he telephoned to Felipe Alvarado, explaining briefly the disastrous failure of his Cuban trip.

"I feared as much," the doctor told him. "You were lucky to escape with your life."

"Well, I'm going back."

"Of course; but have you made any plans?"

"Not yet. I dare say I'll have to join some filibustering outfit. Won't you intercede for me with the Junta? They're constantly sending parties."

"Um-m! not quite so often as that." Alvarado was silent for a moment; then he said: "Dine with me to-night and we'll talk it over. I'm eager for news of my brothers and--there is some one I wish you to meet. She is interested in our cause."

"'She'? A woman?"

"Yes, and an unusual woman. She has contributed liberally to our cause.

I would like you to meet her."

"Very well; but I've only one suit of clothes, and it looks as if I'd slept in it."

"Oh, bother the clothes!" laughed the physician. "I've given most of mine to my dest.i.tute countrymen. Don't expect too much to eat, either; every extra dollar, you know, goes the same way as my extra trousers.

It will be a sort of patriotic 'poverty party.' Come at seven, please."

"Dining out, eh? Lucky devil!" said Leslie Branch when he had learned of his companion's invitation. "And to meet a philanthropic old lady!

Gee! Maybe she'll offer to adopt you. Who knows?"

"I wish you'd offer to lend me a clean shirt."

"I'll do it," readily agreed the other. "I'll stake you to my last one.

But keep it clean! Have a care for the cuffs--a little inadvertency with the soup may ruin my prospects for a job. You understand, don't you, that our next meal after this one may depend upon this shirt's prosperous appearance?" Branch dove into his bag and emerged with a stiffly laundered shirt done up in a Cuban newspaper. He unwrapped the garment and gazed fondly upon it, murmuring, "'Tis a pretty thing, is it not?" His exertions had brought on a violent coughing-spell, which left him weak and gasping; but when he had regained his breath he went on in the same key: "Again I solemnly warn you that this spotless bosom is our bulwark against poverty. One stain may cut down my s.p.a.ce rates; editors are an infernally fastidious lot. Fortunately they want facts about the war in Cuba, and I'm full of 'em: I've fought in the trenches and heard the song of grape and canister--"

"Grape-fruit and canned goods, you mean," O'Reilly grinned.

"Well, I shall write with both in mind. The hope of one will stir memories of the other. And who is there to dispute me? At least I know what a battle should be like, and I shall thrill my readers with imaginary combats."

O'Reilly eyed the speaker with appreciation. On the way north he had learned to know Leslie Branch and to like him, for he had discovered that the man possessed a rare and pleasing peculiarity of disposition.

Ordinarily Branch was bitter, irritable, pessimistic; but when his luck was worst and his fortunes lowest he brightened up. It seemed that he reacted naturally, automatically, against misfortune. Certainly his and O'Reilly's plight upon leaving Cuba had been sufficiently unpleasant, for they were almost penniless, and the invalid, moreover, knew that he was facing a probably fatal climate; nevertheless, once they were at sea, he had ceased his grumbling, and had surprised his traveling-companion by a.s.suming a genuinely cheerful mien. Even yet O'Reilly was not over his amazement; he could not make up his mind whether the man was animated by desperate courage or merely by hopeless resignation. But whatever the truth, the effect of this typical perversity had been most agreeable. And when Leslie cheerfully volunteered to share the proceeds of his newspaper work during their stay in New York, thus enabling his friend to seize the first chance of returning to Cuba, Johnnie's affection for him was cemented. But Branch's very cheerfulness worried him; it seemed to betoken that the fellow was sicker than he would confess.

That evening O'Reilly antic.i.p.ated his dinner engagement by a few moments in order to have a word alone with Alvarado.

"I've seen Enriquez," he told the doctor, "but he won't promise to send me through. He says the Junta is besieged by fellows who want to fight for Cuba--and of course I don't. When I appealed in Rosa's name he told me, truthfully enough, I dare say, that there are thousands of Cuban women as badly in need of succor as she. He says this is no time for private considerations."

"Quite so!" the doctor agreed. "We hear frightful stories about this new concentration policy. I--can't believe them."

"Oh, I guess they are true; it is the more reason why I must get back at once," O'Reilly said, earnestly.

"This lady who is coming here to-night has influence with Enriquez. You remember I told you that she has contributed liberally. She might help you."

"I'll implore her to put in a word for me. Who is she?"

"Well, she's my pet nurse--"

"A nurse!" O'Reilly's eyes opened wide. "A nurse, with MONEY! I didn't know there was such a thing."

"Neither did I. They're rarer even than rich doctors," Alvarado acknowledged. "But, you see, nursing is merely Miss Evans's avocation.

She's one of the few wealthy women I know who have real ideals, and live up to them."

"Oh, she has a 'mission'!" Johnnie's interest in Doctor Alvarado's other guest suddenly fell away, and his tone indicated as much. As the doctor was about to reply the ringing of the door-bell summoned him away.

O'Reilly had met women with ideals, with purposes, with avocations, and his opinion of them was low. Women who had "missions" were always tiresome, he had discovered. This one, it appeared, was unusual only in that she had adopted a particularly exacting form of charitable work.

Nursing, even as a rich woman's diversion, must be anything but agreeable. O'Reilly pictured this Evans person in his mind--a large, plain, elderly creature, obsessed with impractical ideas of uplifting the ma.s.ses! She would undoubtedly bore him stiff with stories of her work: she would reproach him with neglect of his duties to the suffering. Johnnie was too poor to be charitable and too deeply engrossed at the moment with his own troubles to care anything whatever about the "ma.s.ses."

And she was a "miss." That meant that she wore thick gla.s.ses and probably kept cats.

A ringing laugh from the cramped hallway interrupted these reflections; then a moment later Doctor Alvarado was introducing O'Reilly to a young woman so completely out of the picture, so utterly the opposite of his preconceived notions, that he was momentarily at a loss. Johnnie found himself looking into a pair of frank gray eyes, and felt his hand seized by a firm, almost masculine grasp. Miss Evans, according to his first dazzling impression, was about the most fetching creature he had ever seen and about the last person by whom any young man could be bored. If she kept cats they must be pedigreed Persian cats, and well worth keeping, Johnnie decided. The girl--and she was a girl--had brought into the room an electric vitality, a breeziness hard to describe. Her eyes were humorous and intelligent; her teeth, which she seemed always ready to show in a friendly, generous smile, were strong and white and sparkling. Altogether she was such a vision of healthy, unaffected, and smartly gotten-up young womanhood that O'Reilly could only stammer his acknowledgment of the introduction, inwardly berating himself for his awkwardness. He was aware of Alvarado's amus.e.m.e.nt, and this added to his embarra.s.sment.

"The doctor has told me all about you." Miss Evans addressed Johnnie over her shoulder as she laid off her furs and a stylish little turban hat. "I'm dying to hear what happened on your trip."