Rainbow's End Part 51

"Oh yes! That was easy enough, for the lad is deformed."

"Tse! Tse! What a pity!"

"But he is sick--dying--"

"Of course. They're all dying--the poor people! It is terrible."

"We--" O'Reilly faltered slightly, so much hung upon the manner in which Morin would take what he was about to say. "We want to get him out of here--we MUST do so, or we'll lose him."

Sensing some hidden significance, some obscure purpose behind this confession, the Spaniard looked sharply at the speaker. His leathery countenance darkened.

"Why are you telling me this?" he inquired. "What makes you think I won't betray you?"

"Something tells me you won't. You have a good heart, and you have kept Narciso from starving, for the sake of your own boy."

"Well?"

"Will you help us?"

"_I_? In Heaven's name, how?"

"By taking us away in your charcoal-schooner."

"You're mad!" Morin cast another apprehensive look over his shoulder.

"I'm a poor man. All I have is my two boats, the vivero, which brings fish, and the volandra, which sails with charcoal. Do you think I'd forfeit them and my life for strangers?"

"There wouldn't be much risk."

"Indeed? Perhaps I know something about that."

O'Reilly leaned closer. "You say you're a poor man, I will pay you well."

Morin eyed the ragged speaker scornfully; it was plain that he put no faith in such a promise, and so O'Reilly took a piece of gold from his pocket, at sight of which the fisherman started.

"What kind of pacificos are you?" Morin queried. His mouth had fallen open, his eyes protruded.

"I, too, am a poor man, but I'm willing to buy freedom for my little brothers and myself."

"How many coins like that have you?"

"Um--m--more than one; enough to pay you for several cargoes of coal."

"And I have given you fish to eat!" Morin rolled his eyes at Jacket. He pondered the marvel of what he had seen, he muttered something to himself.

"For the sake of Miguelito," Jacket urged. "CARAMBA! What a hard-hearted father begot that boy!"

"Hush!" The fisherman was scowling. To O'Reilly he said, "You do wrong to tempt a poor man."

"My brother Esteban is sick. He is a frail little lad with a crooked back. G.o.d will reward you."

"Perhaps! But how much will YOU pay?"

"Ten Spanish sovereigns like this--all that I have."

"No! It is not enough."

O'Reilly took Jacket's hand and turned away. "I'm sorry," said he. "I wish I might offer you more." He had taken several steps before Morin hailed him.

"Come back to-morrow," the fisherman cried, crossly. "We will try to talk like sensible people."

The brothers Villar were back at Morin's fish-stand on the following afternoon and they returned daily thereafter until they at last prevailed over the Spaniard's fears and won his promise of a.s.sistance.

That much accomplished, they made several cautious purchases, a coat here, a shirt there, a pair of trousers in another place, until they had a.s.sembled a complete boy's outfit of clothing.

At first Rosa refused absolutely to desert her two faithful negro friends, and O'Reilly won her consent to consider his plan of escape only after he had put the matter squarely up to Asensio and his wife and after both had refused to enter into it. Asensio declared that he was too sick to be moved, and a.s.serted that he would infinitely prefer to remain where he was, provided he was supplied with sufficient money to cover his needs. Evangelina agreed with him.

Then, and not until then, did Rosa begin her preparations. First she made Evangelina cut her hair, a sacrilege that wrung sighs and tears and loud lamentations from the black woman, after which she altered the suit of boy's clothing to fit her figure, or rather to conceal it.

When at last she put it on for O'Reilly's approval she was very shy, very self-conscious, and so altogether unboylike that he shook his head positively.

"My dear, you'll never do," he told her. "You are altogether too pretty."

"But wait until I put that hideous hump upon my back and stain my face, then you will see how ugly I can look."

"Perhaps," he said, doubtfully. A moment, then his frown lightened.

"You give me a thought," said he. "You shall wear the jewels."

"Wear them? How?"

"On your back, in that very hump. It will be the safest possible way to conceal them."

Rosa clapped her hands in delight. "Why, of course! It is the very thing. Wait until I show you."

Profiting by her first moment alone--Evangelina and her husband being still in ignorance of the contents of the treasure-box--Rosa made a bundle out of the jewels and trinkets and fastened it securely inside her coat. After a few experiments she adjusted it to her liking, then called O'Reilly once more. This time he was better satisfied; he was, in truth, surprised at the effect of the disfigurement, and, after putting Rosa through several rehearsals in masculine deportment, he p.r.o.nounced the disguise as nearly perfect as could be hoped for. An application of Evangelina's stain to darken her face, a few tatters and a liberal application of dirt to the suit, and he declared that Rosa would pa.s.s anywhere as a boy.

There came a night when the three of them bade good-by to their black companions and slipped away across the city to that section known as Pueblo Nuevo, then followed the road along the water-front until they found shelter within the shadows of a rickety structure which had once served as a bath-house. The building stood partially upon piles and under it they crept, knee-deep in the lapping waves. To their left was the illumination of Matanzas; to their right, the lights of the Penas Alias fort; ahead of them, empty and dark save for the riding-lights of a few small coasting-vessels, lay the harbor.

The refugees waited a long time; they were beginning 'to fear that old Morin's nerve had weakened at the eleventh hour, when they beheld a skiff approaching the sh.o.r.e. It glided closer, entered the shade of the bathhouse, then a voice cried:

"Pset! You are there?" It was Morin himself.

Hastily the three piled aboard. Morin bent to his oars and the skiff shot out. "You were not observed?" he inquired.

"No."

Morin rowed in silence for a time, then confessed: "This business is not to my liking. There is too much risk. Think of me putting my neck in peril--"

"Ho!" Jacket chuckled. "It is just the sort of thing that I enjoy. If Miguelito was captain of his father's boat we'd been in Cardenas by daybreak."