Rainbow's End Part 40

"Oh! That lays over any story I ever heard. To think that the deeds and the jewels and everything are in the well AT THIS MINUTE! How COULD you go away and leave them?"

"I didn't think it out at the time. I didn't evolve my theory until after I had fled. Naturally, I wasn't able to get back."

"But suppose somebody finds it?" Norine was aghast at the thought.

"Not much chance of that. The treasure has lain there for a generation, and the story itself is almost forgotten." Esteban turned triumphantly to O'Reilly, saying, "Now then, do you think I'm so crazy?"

O'Reilly didn't have it in his heart to say exactly what he really thought. The circ.u.mstances of the discovery of the coin were odd enough, certainly, but it seemed to him that they were capable of several explanations. If, indeed, there had ever been a doubloon and if Esteban had found it in the dead hand of his stepmother, that, in O'Reilly's opinion, by no means proved the existence of the mythical Varona h.o.a.rd, nor did it solve the secret of its whereabouts. What he more than half suspected was that some favored fancy had formed lodgment in Esteban's brain.

"It's an interesting theory," he admitted. "Anyhow, there is no danger of the treasure being uncovered very soon. Cueto had a good look and made himself ridiculous. You'll have ample chance to do likewise when the war is over."

"You must help me find it," said Esteban. "We shall all share the fortune equally, you two, Rosa and I."

"WE? Why should WE share in it?" Norine asked.

"I owe it to you. Didn't O'Reilly rescue me from a dungeon? Haven't you nursed me back to health? Don't I owe my life to you both?"

"Nonsense! I, for one, sha'n't take a dollar of it," the girl declared.

"All I want to do is help dig. If you'll just promise to let me do that--"

"I promise. And you shall have one-fourth of everything."

"No! No!"

"Oh, but you MUST. I insist. Nursing is a poorly paid profession.

Wouldn't you like to be rich?"

"Profession! Poorly paid?" Norine sputtered, angrily. "As if I'd take pay!"

"As if I would accept a great service and forget it, like some miserable beggar!" Esteban replied, stiffly.

O'Reilly laughed out. "Don't let's quarrel over the spoil until we get it," said he. "That's the way with all treasure-hunters. They invariably fall out and go to fighting. To avoid bloodshed, I'll agree to sell my interest cheap, for cash. Come! What will you bid? Start it low. Do I hear a dollar bid? A dollar! A dollar! A dollar! My share of the famous Varona fortune going for a dollar!"

"There! He doesn't believe a word of it," Esteban said.

Norine gave an impatient shrug. "Some people wouldn't believe they were alive unless they saw their breath on a looking-gla.s.s. 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 m.u.f.fle 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!"

"d.a.m.n the trocha!" O'Reilly exclaimed. "At last I've got a chance to DO something. G.o.d! 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 pa.s.s swiftly out of sight.