Rita Part 5

Manuela looked after them, and laid her hand on her heart; it was a gesture that she had often seen her mistress use, and it seemed to her infinitely touching and beautiful. "_Ohime_," sighed Manuela. "War is terrible, indeed! To think that we must go away, just when we are so comfortable. But where, then, is this idiot? Pepe! When I call you, will you come, animal? Pepe!"

The thicket near the rancho rustled and shook, and Pepe appeared. This young man presented a different figure from the forlorn one that had greeted the two girls on their first arrival at the camp. His curly hair was now carefully brushed and oiled. The scarlet handkerchief was still tied about his head, but it was tied now with a grace that might have done credit to the most dandified matador in the Havana ring. His jacket was neatly mended; altogether, Pepe was once more a self-respecting, even a self-admiring youth. Also, he admired Manuela immensely, and lost no opportunity of telling that she was the light of his eyes and the flower of his soul. He was now beginning some remarks of this description, but Manuela interrupted him, laying her pretty brown hand unceremoniously on his lips.

"For once, Pepe, endeavour to possess a small portion of sense," she said. "Listen to me! We must leave the camp."

"How then, marrow of my bones! Leave the camp? You and I?"

"I am speaking to a monkey, then, instead of a man? The use, I ask you, of addressing intelligent remarks to such a corporosity? My mistress and I, simpleton. This General of yours drives us from his quarters; he begrudges the morsel we eat, the rude hut that shelters us. Enough! we go; even now I make preparation. Pull this strap for me, Pepe; at least you have strength. Ah! If I were but a great stupid man, it would be well with me this day!"

"But well for no one else, my idol," said Pepe, tugging away at the strap. "Desolation and despair for the rest of mankind, Rose of the Antilles. Accidental death to this bag! why have you filled it so full?

There! it is strapped. Manuela, is it possible that I live without you?

No! I shall fall an easy victim to the first fever that comes; already I feel it scorching my--"

"Oh, a paralysis upon you! Can I exercise my thoughts, with the chatter of a parrot in my ears? Attend, then, Pepe,--you will miss me a little, will you? Just a very little?"

Pepe opened his mouth for new and fiery protestations, but was bidden peremptorily to shut it again.

"I desire now to hear myself speak," said Manuela. "I weary, Pepe, for the sound of my own poor little voice. Listen, then! These days I have been here, and you have never asked me what I brought with me for you; brought all that cruel way from the city. I knew I should find you somewhere, my good Pepe; or, if not you, some other friend, some other good son of Cuba. I thought of you, I remembered you, even in the rush of our departure. See! It is yours. May it bring you fortune!"

She handed him a little packet, neatly folded in white paper, and tied with a crimson ribbon. Receiving it with dramatic eagerness, Pepe opened it and looked with delight at its contents.

"A _detente_!" he cried. "Manuela! and the most beautiful that has been seen upon the earth. This is not for me! No! Impossible! The General alone is worthy to wear this object of an elegance so resplendent."

Rea.s.sured on this point, he proceeded to pin the emblem on his jacket, and contemplated it with delighted pride. It was a simple thing enough; a square of white flannel the size of an ordinary needlebook, neatly scalloped around the edge with white silk. In the centre was embroidered a crimson heart, and under it the words, "_Detente! pienso en ti!_" ("Be of good cheer! I think of thee!")

"And did you really think of me, Manuela?" cried the delighted Pepe.

"Did you, bright and gay, in the splendid city, think of the lonely soldier?"

"Yes, I did," said Manuela, "when I had nothing else to do. And now you may go away, Pepe, I am busy; I cannot attend to you any longer."

"But," said Pepe, bewildered, "you called me, Manuela."

"Yes; to strap my bag. It is done; I thank you. It is finished."

"And--you have given me the _detente_, moon of my soul!"

"Then you cannot complain that I never gave you anything. And now I give you one thing more,--leave to depart. _Adios,_ Don Pepe!" and she actually shut the door of the hut in the face of her astonished adorer, who departed muttering strange things concerning the changeableness of all women, and of Manuela in particular.

Meanwhile, Rita and Carlos were wandering about the camp, and Rita was seeing, as her brother promised, some things that were new to her, even after a stay of nearly a week. She saw the kitchen, or what pa.s.sed for a kitchen,--a pleasant spot under a palm-tree, where the cook was even then toasting long strips of meat over the _parilla_, a kind of gridiron, made by simply driving four stakes, and laying bits of wood across and across them, then lighting a fire beneath.

"But why does it not burn up, your _parilla_?" asked Rita of the long, lean, coffee-coloured soldier, picturesque and ragged, who was turning the strips with a forked stick.

"Pardon, gracious senorita, it does burn up; not the first time, nor perhaps the second, but without doubt the third."

"And then?"

"And then,--it is but to build another. An affair of a moment, senorita."

"But does not the meat often fall into the fire when it breaks?"

"Sufficiently often, most n.o.ble. What of that? It imparts a flavour of its own; one brushes off the ashes--soldiers do not dine at the Hotel Royal, one must observe. May I offer the senorita a bit of this excellent beef? This has not fallen down at all, or at most but once, one little time."

Rita thanked him, but was not hungry. At least she would have a cup of _guarapo_, the hospitable cook begged; and he hastened to bring her a cup of polished cocoanut sh.e.l.l, filled with the favourite drink, which was simply hot water with sugar dissolved in it. Rita took the cup graciously, and drank to the health of the camp, and to the freedom of Cuba; the cook responded with many bows and profuse thanks for the honour she had done him, and the brother and sister pa.s.sed on.

"There are some good bananas near here," said Carlos; "little red ones, the kind you like, Rita. I'll fill a basket for you to take with you; Don Annunzio's may not be so good."

They were making their way through a tangle of tall gra.s.s and young palm-trees, when suddenly Rita stopped, and laid her hand on her brother's arm.

"Look!" she said. "Look yonder, Carlos! The gra.s.s moves."

"A snake, perhaps," said Carlos; "or a land-crab. Stand here a moment, and I will go forward and see."

He advanced, looking keenly at the clump of yellowish gra.s.s that Rita had pointed out. Certainly, the gra.s.s did move. It quivered, waved from side to side, then seemed to settle down, as if an invisible hand were pulling it from below. Carlos drew his machete, and bent forward; whereupon a loud yell was heard, and the clump of gra.s.s shot up into the air, revealing a black face, and a pair of rolling eyes.

"What is it?" cried Rita, in terror. "Carlos, come back to me! It is a devil!"

"Only a scout!" said her brother, laughing. "One of our own men on outpost duty. Have peace, Pablo! your hour is not yet come."

"_Caramba!_ I thought it was, my captain!" said the negro scout, grinning. "Better be a crab than a Cuban in these days."

He was a singular figure indeed. From head to waist he was literally clothed in gra.s.s, bunches of it being tied over his head and round his neck and shoulders, falling to his thighs. A pair of ragged trousers of no particular colour completed his costume. A more perfect disguise could not be imagined; indeed, except when he lifted his head, he was not to be distinguished from the clumps and tufts of dry gra.s.s all about him.

"Pablo is a good scout!" said Carlos, approvingly. "No Gringo could possibly see you till he stepped on you, Pablo; and then--"

"And then!" said Pablo, grinning from ear to ear; and he drew his machete and went through an expressive pantomime which, if carried out, would certainly have left very little of Gringo or any one else.

"Is your post near here? show it! The senorita would like to see how a Cuban scout lives."

Pablo, a man of few words, gave a pleased nod, and scuttled away through the bush, beckoning them to follow. Rita, stepping carefully along, holding her brother's hand, kept her eyes on the scout for a few moments; then he seemed to melt into the rest of the gra.s.s, and was gone. A few steps more, and they almost fell over him, as his black face popped up again, shaking back its gra.s.sy fringes.

"Behold the domicile of Pablo!" he said, with a magnificent gesture.

"The property, with all it contains, of the senorita and the Senor Captain Don Carlos."

Brother and sister tried to look becomingly impressed as they surveyed the domain. Close under a waving palm-tree a rag of brown canvas was stretched on two sticks laid across upright branches stuck in the ground. Under this awning was s.p.a.ce for a man to sit, or even to lie down, if he did not mind his feet being in the sun. A small iron pot, hung on three sticks over some blackened stones, showed where the householder did his cooking; a heap of leaves and gra.s.s answered for bed and pillows; this was the domicile of Pablo.

Breaking a twig from a neighbouring shrub, the scout bent over the pot, and speared a plantain, which he offered to Rita with grave courtesy.

She took it with equal dignity, thanking him with her most gracious smile, and ate it daintily, praising its flavour and the perfection of its cooking till the good negro's face shone with pleasure.

"And you stay here alone, Pablo?" she asked. "How long? you are not afraid? No, of course not that; you are a soldier. But lonely! is it not very lonely here, at night above all?"

Pablo spread out his hands. "Senorita, possibly--if it were not for the crabs. These good souls--they have the disposition of a Christian!--sit with me, in the intervals of their occupations, and are excellent company. They cannot talk, but that suits me very well. Then, there is always the chance of some one coming by--as to-day, when the Blessed Virgin sends the senorita and the Senor Don Carlos. Also at any moment the devil may send me a Gringo; their scouts are as plenty as scorpions.

No, senorita, I am not lonely. It is a fine life! In a prison, you see, it would be quite otherwise."

"But there are other ways of living, Pablo, beside scouting and going to prison," said Rita, much amused.

"Without doubt! Without doubt!" said Pablo, cheerfully. "And a.s.suredly neither would befit the senorita. May she live as happy as she is beautiful, the sun being black beside her. _Adios_, senorita; _adios_, Senor Captain Don Carlos!"

"_Adios_, good Pablo! good luck to you and your crabs!" and laughing and waving a salute, they left the scout nodding his gra.s.s-crowned head like a transformed mandarin, and went back to the camp.