Rainbow's End Part 45

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 rea.s.suring 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. G.o.d! 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, compa.s.sion--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:

"G.o.d 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 a.s.serted. "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 rec.u.mbent 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 appet.i.te--their hunger had long since pa.s.sed 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!"