Rita Part 4

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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s of tall gra.s.ses 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 gra.s.s 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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 const.i.tuted 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 gra.s.s, 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 n.o.ble 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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, n.o.ble 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!"

CHAPTER VII.

CAMP SCENE.

"If I must, dear Senor General--I will be good, I will, indeed; but my heart will break to leave Carlos, and the camp, and you, Senor General."

"My dear child,--my dear young lady, what pleasure for me to keep you here! the first sunshine of the war, it came with you, Senorita Margarita. Nevertheless, duty is duty; I should be wanting in mine, most wofully and wickedly wanting, if I allowed you to remain here, in hourly danger, when a few hours could place you in comparative safety. Perfect safety, I do not promise. Where shall we find it, even for our nearest and dearest, in this poor distracted country? But with Don Annunzio and his family you will be safe at least for a time; whereas here--" The General looked around, and shrugged his shoulders, spreading his hands out with a dramatic gesture. "The Gringos have learned the way to our mountain camp; they will not forget it. Another attack may come any night; our camp is an outpost, placed of purpose to guard this position, which must of necessity be one of danger. To have women with us--it is not only exposing them to the terrible possibilities of war, but--"

He paused. "I see!" cried Rita. "I see! you are too kind to say it, but we are a burden upon you. We make harder the work; we are an enc.u.mbrance. Dear Senor General, I go! I fly! Give me half, a quarter of an hour, and I am gone. Never, never, will I be in the way of my country's defenders; never! Too long we have stayed already; Manuela shall make on the instant our packets, and in a little hour you shall forget that we were here at all."

The good General cried out, "No! no! my dear child, my dear senorita; cease these words, I implore you. You cut me to the heart. Consider the help that you have brought to us; consider the nursing, the tender care that you and the wife of Valdez have given to our sufferers, in the rancho there. Never will this be forgotten, rest a.s.sured of that.

But--it is true that you must go; yet not too soon. This evening, when the coolness falls, Don Carlos, with a chosen escort, will conduct you to the residence of Don Annunzio. There, I rejoice to think that you will find, not luxury, but at least some few of the comforts of ordinary life. Here you have suffered; your lofty spirit will not confess it, but you have--you must have suffered, delicate and fragile as you are, in the rough life of a Cuban camp. Enough! The day is before you, dearest senorita. I pray you, while it lasts, make use of me, of all that the camp contains, in whatever way you can imagine. I would make the day a pleasant one, if I might. Command me, dear senorita, in anything and everything. The camp is yours, with all it contains."

He bowed with courtly grace, and Rita courtsied and then turned quickly away, to hide the tears that would come in spite of her. It was a keen disappointment. When Carlos told her that morning that she must leave the camp, she had refused pointblank. A stormy scene followed, in which the old Rita was only too much in evidence. She raged, she wept, she stamped her little foot. She was a Cuban, as much as he was; she was a nurse, a daughter of the army; no human power should drive her from the ground where she was prepared to shed her last drop of blood for the defenders of her country. Now--a few kind, grave words from a gray-haired man, and all was changed. She was not a necessity, she was a hindrance; she saw that this must be so; the pain was sharp, but she would not show it; she would never again lose her self-control, never.

Carlos should see that she was no longer a child. He had called her a child, not half an hour ago, a naughty child, who was making trouble for everybody. Well--Rita stood still; the thought came over her suddenly,--it was true! she had been childish, had been naughty. Suppose Margaret or Peggy should behave so, stamping and storming; how would it seem? Oh, well, that was different. Their blood was cool, almost cold.

It flowed sluggishly in their veins. She was a child of the South; it was not to be expected that she should be like Margaret. Yes! but--the thought would come, troubling all her mind; suppose Margaret were here, with her calm sense, her cheerful face, and tranquil voice; would not she be of more use, of more help, than a girl who could not help screaming when she was in a pa.s.sion?

These thoughts were new to Rita Montfort. Full of them, she walked slowly to her hut, with bent head, and eyes full of unshed tears.

Meanwhile, the good General went back to his tent, where Carlos awaited him with some anxiety.

"Well?" he asked, as the gray head bent under the tent-flaps.

"Well," responded his commander. "It is very well, my son. The senorita--she is adorable, do you know it? Never have I seen a more lovely young person! The senorita is most reasonable. She comprehends; she understands the desolation that it is to me to send away so delightful a visitor; nevertheless--she accepts all, with her own exquisite grace."

Carlos shrugged his shoulders; that same exquisite grace had flashed a dagger in his eyes not ten minutes before, vowing that it should be sheathed in the owner's heart before she left the camp; but it was not necessary to say this to the General. Carlos was an affectionate brother, and was honestly relieved and glad to find that Rita had come to her senses. He thanked General Sevillo warmly for his good offices, and, being off duty, went in search of his sister, determining that he would make her last day in camp a pleasant one, so far as lay in his power. He found Rita sitting sadly in the door of her hut, watching Manuela, who was packing up their belongings, unwillingly enough.

Manuela had enjoyed her stay in camp greatly, and thought life would be very dull, in comparison, at Don Annunzio's cottage; but there was no escape, and the white silk blouse and the swansdown wrapper went into the bag with all the other fineries.

"Come, Rita," said Carlos, taking his sister's hand affectionately; "come with me, and let me show you some things that you have not yet seen. You must not forget the camp. Who knows? Some day you may come back to pay us a visit."

Rita shook her head, and the tears came to her eyes again; but she drove them back bravely, and smiled, and laid her hand in her brother's; and they pa.s.sed out together among the palm-trees.