Chapter 22

Leaving Jacket to take his time, Johnnie completed the climb alone, meditating upon the boy's words. "The spirit to try!" Where had his spirit gone, he wondered. Perhaps it had been crushed beneath the weight of misery he had beheld; surely he had seen enough. Hourly contact with sickness and misfortune on such a gigantic scale was enough to chill any one's hopes, and although his sensibilities had been dulled, his apprehensions had been quickened hour by hour. Now that he looked the matter squarely in the face, it seemed absurd to believe that a tender girl like Rosa Varona could long have withstood the hardships of this hideous place; stronger people than she had succumbed, by the hundreds. Even now the hospitals were full, the sick lay untended in their hovels. No one, so far as O'Reilly knew, had undertaken to estimate how fast they were dying or the number of dead which had already ridden out of Matanzas in those rumbling wagons, but there were many. What chance was there that Rosa had not been among the latter? Better by far had she remained among the empty fields and the barren slopes of the Pan de Matanzas, for there at least the soil held roots and the trees bore fruits or berries, while here was nothing but gaunt famine and grinning disease.

As he breasted the summit of La Cumbre, O'Reilly beheld at some distance a bent figure of want. It was a negro woman, grubbing in the earth with a sharpened stick. After a suspicious scrutiny of him she resumed her digging.

Nothing but a heap of stones and plaster remained of the Varona home. The grounds, once beautiful even when neglected as in Dona Isabel's time, were now a scene of total desolation. A few orange-trees, to be sure, remained standing, and although they were cool and green to look at, they carried no fruit and the odor of their blooms was a trial and a mockery to the hungry visitor. The evidences of Cueto's vandalism affected O'Reilly deeply; they brought him memories more painful than he had anticipated. Although the place was well-nigh unrecognizable, nevertheless it cried aloud of Rosa, and the unhappy lover could barely control the emotions it awakened. It was indeed a morbid impulse which had brought him thither, but now that he was here he could not leave. Unconsciously his feet turned toward the ancient quarry which had formed the sunken garden--his and Rosa's trysting-place.

O'Reilly desired above all things to be alone at this moment, and so he was annoyed to discover that another person was before him--a woman, evidently some miserable pacifico like himself. She, too, appeared to be looking for roots, and he almost stumbled over her as he brushed through the guava-bushes fringing the depression.

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 reassuring 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. God! 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, compassion--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:

"God 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 asserted. "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 recumbent 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 appetite--their hunger had long since passed 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!"

XXV

THE HAUNTED GARDEN

Rosa Varona did not die. On the contrary, under her lover's care she made so amazingly swift a recovery that improvement was visible from hour to hour; she rallied like a wilted flower under a refreshing rain. It was O'Reilly's presence as much as the nourishing diet provided by his money which effected this marvel, although the certainty that Esteban was alive and safe put added force into her determination to live. Rosa found hope springing up in her breast, and one day she caught herself laughing. The marvel of it was unbelievable. O'Reilly was sitting beside her bed of leaves at the time; impulsively she pressed his hand to her lips, repeating a question she had asked him many times:

"Do you love me?"

For answer he bent and kissed her. What he said was of no consequence.

Rosa held his hand against her cheek, at a loss for words with which to voice her gladness.

"Such happiness as mine belongs in heaven," she managed to tell him. "Sometimes it frightens me. With you by my side this prison is a paradise and I want for nothing. War, suffering, distress--I can't imagine they longer exist."

"Nevertheless, they do, and Matanzas is anything but a paradise," said he. "It is--hell, and we must set about quickly to get out of it."

"Escape, do you mean? But that is impossible. Asensio can tell you all about that. The Spaniards used to issue passes for the men to go outside the lines in search of food. It was just a trick. They never came back--all of them were killed. Every one knows better than to try, now."

"Nevertheless, we can't stay here much longer." In answer to the girl's puzzled inquiry he explained: "My money is gone--all but a few cents. This is the last of our food and there is no chance of getting more. Jacket has some mysterious source of supply and he manages to bring in something every now and then, but there are five of us to feed, and he can't furnish more than enough for himself. No, we must make a move at once, while we have the strength."

Rosa had not asked the source whence came the blessed food which was bringing the life blood back into her body, and although that food was not much--a little meal, a plantain, an occasional scrap of meat or fish--it had never occurred to her that the supply might be limited. She met the problem bravely, however.

"I have been close to death so long that it means little to me," she confessed. "I have you, and--well, with you at my side I can face the worst."

"Oh, we won't give up until we have to," he assured her. "If I had money it would be a simple proposition to bribe some guard to pass us through the lines, but I have spent all that General Betancourt gave me." He smoothed back Rosa's dark hair and smiled reassuringly at her. "Well, I'll manage somehow; so don't worry your pretty head. I'll find the price, if I have to waylay old Don Mario and rob him. Don't you think I look like a bandit? The very sight of me would terrify that fat rascal."

"To me you are beautiful," breathed the girl. Then she lowered her eyes. "La, la! How I spoil you! I have quite forgotten how to be ladylike. Isabel was right when she called me a bold and forward hussy. Now, then, please turn your face aside, for I wish to think, and so long as you look at me I cannot--I make love to you brazenly. See! Now, then, that is much better. I shall hold your hand, so. When I kiss it you may look at me again, for a moment." Drawing herself closer to O'Reilly, Rosa began thoughtfully: "Before you came I more than once was on the point of appealing to some of my former friends, but they are all Spaniards and we are no longer--simpatico, you understand?"

Rosa paused for his answer.

"Perfectly; I'm in the same fix. Of all the people I used to know there isn't one but would denounce me if I made myself known. Now that I've been fighting with the Insurrectos, I daren't even go to the American consul for help--if there is an American consul."

Rosa nodded, then continued, hesitatingly: "I had a vivid dream last night. Perhaps it was a portent. Who knows? It was about that stepmother of mine. You remember how she met her death? I wrote you--"

"Yes, and Esteban also told me."

"It was he who recovered her body from the well. One day, while we were in hiding, away up yonder in the Yumuri, he showed me an old coin--"

"I know," O'Reilly said, quickly. "He told me the whole story. He thinks that doubloon is a clue to your father's fortune, but--I can't put much faith in it. In fact, I didn't believe until this moment that there was a doubloon at all."

"Oh, indeed there was! I saw it."

"Then it wasn't merely a sick fancy of your brother's?"

"Indeed no, it--" Rosa broke off to exclaim, "O'Reilly, you are looking at me!"

"But you gave me the signal to look," he protested.

"Nothing of the sort; you placed your fingers upon my lips." There was a moment of silence during which the lovers were oblivious to all but each other, then Rosa murmured: "How strange! Sometimes your eyes are blue and sometimes gray. Does that mean that your love, too, can change?"

"Certainly not. But come, what about Esteban and that doubloon?"

With an effort the girl brought herself back to earth. "Well, it occurred to me, in the light of that dream last night, that Esteban may have been right. Of course nobody outside of our family credits the old story, and yet my father was considered a very rich man at one time. Pancho Cueto believed in the existence of the treasure, and he was in a position to know."

"True! Perhaps, after all--" O'Reilly frowned meditatively.

Rosa lifted herself upon her elbow, her eyes sparkling. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if it were true? Just think, O'Reilly, cases of Spanish gold, silver coins in casks, packages of gems. Oh, I've heard Isabel talk about it often enough!"

"Don't forget those pearls from the Caribbean, as large as plums," Johnny smiled. "I could never quite swallow that. A pearl the size of a currant would buy our freedom right now." After a moment he went on, more seriously: "I've a notion to look into that old well this very afternoon. I--I dare say I'm foolish, but--somehow the story doesn't sound so improbable as it did. Perhaps it is worth investigating--" He made up his mind swiftly. "I--I'm off this very instant."

When O'Reilly emerged from the hut he found Jacket industriously at work over a fragment of grindstone which he had somewhere unearthed. The boy looked up at his friend's approach and held out for inspection a long, thin file, which he was slowly shaping into a knife-blade.

"What do you think of that?" he queried, proudly. "It may come in handy when we are ready to clear out of this pesthole."

"Where did you get it?"

"Oh, I stole it. I steal everything I can lay my hands on nowadays. One can never tell when he may have a throat to cut, and a file has good steel in it."

"Since you are such an accomplished thief, do you think you could steal something for me?" O'Reilly inquired. "A piece of rope?"

"Rope?" Jacket was puzzled. "Rope is only good for hanging Spaniards. My friend in the fish-market has a volandra, and--perhaps I can rob him of a halyard." Laying aside his task, Jacket arose and made off in the direction of the water-front. He was back within an hour, and under his shirt he carried a coil of worn, but serviceable, rope. Without waiting to explain his need for this unusual article, O'Reilly linked arms with the boy and set out to climb La Cumbre. When at last they stood in the unused quarry and Johnnie made known his intention to explore the old well Jacket regarded him with undisguised amazement.

"What do you expect to find down there?" the latter inquired.

"To tell you the truth, I don't really expect to find anything," the man confessed. "Now that I'm here, I'm beginning to feel silly; nevertheless, I'm going to have a look for the hidden treasure of the Varonas."

"Hidden treasure!" From Jacket's expression it was plain that he feared his friend was mildly mad. Even after O'Reilly had told him something about old Don Esteban's missing riches, he scouted the story. He peeped inquisitively into the dark opening of the well, then he shook his head. "Caramba! What an idea! Was this old man crazy, to throw his money away?"

"He--he had more than he knew what to do with, and he wished to save it from the Spaniards," O'Reilly explained, lamely.

"Humph! Nobody ever had more money than he wanted." The boy's disgust at such credulity was plain. "This well looks just like any other, only deeper; you'd better look out that you don't break your neck like that foolish old woman, that Dona What's-Her-Name."

O'Reilly did indeed feel that he was making himself ridiculous, nevertheless he made the rope fast and swung himself down out of the sunlight, leaving Jacket to stand guard over him. Perhaps fifteen minutes later he reappeared, panting from his exertions. He was wet, slimy; his clothes were streaked and stained with mud. Jacket began to laugh shrilly at his appearance.

"Ha! What a big lizard is this? Your beautiful garments are spoiled. And the treasure? Where is it?" The lad was delighted. He bent double with mirth; he slapped his bare legs and stamped his feet in glee.

O'Reilly grinned good-naturedly, and replaced the planks which had covered the orifice, then hid the rope in some near-by bushes. On their way back he endured his young friend's banter absent-mindedly, but as they neared Asensio's house he startled Jacket by saying, "Can you manage to find a pick-ax or a crowbar?"

Jacket's eyes opened; he stopped in the middle of the dusty road. "What did you see down there, compadre? Tell me."

"Nothing much. Just enough to make me want to see more. Do you think you can steal some sort of a tool for me?"

"I can try."

"Please do. And remember, say nothing before Asensio or his wife."

Rosa met O'Reilly just inside the door, and at sight of her he uttered an exclamation of surprise, for during his absence she had removed the stain from her face and discarded that disfigurement which Evangelina had fitted to her back prior to their departure from the Pan de Matanzas. She stood before him now, straight and slim and graceful--the Rosa of his dreams, only very thin, very fragile. Her poor tatters only enhanced her prettiness, so he thought.

"Rosa dear! Do you think this is quite safe?" he ventured, doubtfully.

Evangelina, who was bending over her husband, straightened herself and came forward with a smile upon her black face.

"She is beautiful, eh? Too beautiful to look at? What did I tell you?"

Rosa was in delightful confusion at O'Reilly's evident surprise and admiration. "Then I'm not so altogether changed?" she asked.

"Why, you haven't changed at all, except to grow more beautiful. Evangelina is right; you are too beautiful to look at. But wait!" He drew her aside and whispered, "I've been down in the well." Some tremor in his voice, some glint in his eyes, caused the girl to seize him eagerly, fiercely. "I may be wrong," he said, hurriedly; "there may be nothing in it--and yet I saw something."

"What?"

"Wooden beams, timbers of some sort, behind the stone curbing." It was plain Rosa did not comprehend, so he hurried on. "At first I noticed nothing unusual, except that the bottom of the well is nearly dry--filled up, you know, with debris and stuff that has fallen in from the curbing above, then I saw that although the well is dug through rock, nevertheless it is entirely curbed up with stones laid in mortar. That struck me as queer."

"Yes?"

"I noticed, too, in one place that there was wood behind--as if timbers had been placed there to cover the entrance to a cave. You know this Cuban rock is full of caverns."

Rosa clasped her hands, she began to tremble. "You have found it, O'Reilly. You HAVE!" she whispered.

"No, no, I've found nothing yet. But I've sent Jacket for a pick or a bar and to-night I'm going to pull down those stones and see what is behind them."

"To-night? You must let me go, too. I want to help."

"Very well. But meanwhile you mustn't let your hopes rise too high, for there is every chance that you will be disappointed. And don't mention it to Evangelina. Now then, I've a few pennies left and I'm going to buy some candles."

Rosa embraced her lover impulsively. "Something tells me it is true! Something tells me you are going to save us all."

Evangelina in the far corner of the hut muttered to her husband: "Such love-birds! They are like parrakeets, forever kissing and cooing!"