An American Part 10

And, then, Estrella crept away for she could do no good by staying, and she did not wish to harm either one of her old friends on whose distress she looked.

Estrella went back to the mansion on the hill, a sadder, it is true, and yet also a wiser woman for she'd seen poor little Tessa's secret burden and Manuello's sorry plight.

She went to Father Felix, the next day, to advise with him about what she had seen; he cautioned her not to mention it to anyone she knew, which advice she followed, strictly; it enlightened him to some extent and he pitied little Tessa more than ever, for he knew the sort of man her patient was ... he knew that he was selfish to the very core of him and had no grat.i.tude for anyone who'd helped him; so he pitied little Tessa and began, in many little unknown ways, to help her bear the burden she'd a.s.sumed.

To begin with, when she came to the confessional, as almost everyone who lived in San Domingo did, he only asked her questions such as she could answer easily ... he did not touch on murder or on lies or on anything that might lead on to surprising her sad secret; he knew her for a simple-minded, loving, tender little girl and he pitied her and did not try to wring from her her secret, knowing that, in all human probability, she would go, some day, to the ruined hut and find no Manuello there to either curse or bless her: in fact, he looked upon this as the most likely of anything that could occur and, when he saw poor little Tessa fading with anxiety and dread, he went, one day, to see the patient in the deserted hut, and, after that, there was no patient there, for Manuello limped away, as he could stand, at last, and hid from even little Tessa for he thought she had betrayed him, after all, and, so, he cursed her with the balance of his rotten luck.

CHAPTER XIV

June 10, 1898, was a memorable day for Cuba, for, on that date, the glorious flag of our own much-beloved country was unfurled over Cuban soil, upheld and supported by United States troops, for the first time.

Father Felix had kept himself well informed as to military matters, and had often consulted with Ruth Wakefield concerning what would actually be needed by our armies when they were finally in the field; in pursuance of the purpose to which they had both devoted their lives and fortunes, these two had established a temporary hospital not far from the city of Santiago, as the good Priest had been informed that one of the next moves of our forces would be in that vicinity; so that, when our starry banner first floated in the breeze at Camp McCalla, Ruth stood beside the new-fledged army Chaplain, and watched, through tear-dimmed eyes, the emblem of our liberty and freedom as it was proudly raised.

That night pa.s.sed quietly, but, for five successive days and nights thereafter, a bitter battle raged in which our blue-clad boys met and finally defeated the Spanish hordes that tried to drive them back or leave their lifeless bodies lying there beneath the blistering sun.

When Ruth had sailed from Havana she had brought her little household with her and established them in temporary quarters near the hospital, and, soon, she saw the little white cots filled with sick or wounded Americans and Cuban scouts.

Volunteer nurses were immediately in demand as, in many ways, our forces were unprepared to meet the enemy; there are no soldiers in the world as brave ... as fine ... as capable ... as are our own United States Volunteers ... both men and women, and, so, Ruth Wakefield and Estrella, anxious to put into practice what they had learned to do, donned the clean white uniforms they had become accustomed to in the training they had taken in Havana for this very purpose, and, very soon, to the eye of a novice, there were two more trained nurses ministering to the many wants of the boys who lay there on those narrow cots, weak and suffering but triumphant in spite of their pain, for the cause of right had won in the first real conflict upon Cuban soil between the Spaniards and the Americans a.s.sisted by Cuban insurgents, who, mainly, acted as spies and scouts, a work to which they were adapted by nature and long practice in a country infested by those whose only object in ruling it had been to gain what they could, in resources and amus.e.m.e.nt, from the natives, with no thought either for their comfort or advancement along the lines of civilized living.

Among the Cuban scouts who had been wounded on that first day of actual combat was one who happened to fall under the care of Estrella for he had been carried in right after her entry into the work of the hospital; this man had been slightly wounded as he was about to give valuable information to one of our own officers, and, perhaps for that reason and because he had shown himself to be particularly useful, he had received even more than the usual attention on the battle-field, for his wound had been dressed more carefully than is customary when first aid is given in the midst of the fray, so that the attending surgeon had declared his condition such that all he needed was tender care, which was why his case had been a.s.signed to a volunteer nurse.

Estrella gravely a.s.sumed the duty allotted to her, with some misgivings as to her own ability, it is true, but with a strong resolve to do the best she could; as she bent over her patient, she noticed, first, his almost deathly pallor, then a jagged scar that stretched across his cheek and had been lately healed ... the edges of it were yet red and angry looking; the girl bent over him pityingly, and, then, she started back for she had recognized, even in the dim light that pervaded the temporary hospital, the features of Manuello; remembering what she had seen in the ruined hut, she shrank from contact with her old admirer, but, with that memory came the knowledge that he had been wounded while in the performance of a service of benefit to her beloved country, and she did not falter in carrying out the instructions of the surgeon in charge with regard to her patient, thinking that, perhaps, before he had recognized her, she might be transferred to some other part of the hospital.

Ruth took her place among the ministering nurses with confidence and courage, for she was one who immediately altogether forgot almost her own ident.i.ty when asked to help another human being, and, while her sympathy with suffering was remarkable, so that she actually suffered pain herself when witnessing it in others, yet she had always been able to do whatever was required of her in an emergency regardless of any bodily ailment that might be troubling her at the time; now, as she saw all around her strong men laid low by violence, her spirit rose to the occasion and she was, for the time, at least, the very personification of patriotic zeal and her love for her country rose to heights almost undreamed of even by herself; she moved among the little cots freely, lending a hand here and whispering a word of encouragement there; the nurses recognized in her a master spirit, at once, and the surgeons looked into her steady eyes, and, instantly, allowed her privileges seldom granted to anyone outside of their own profession; her very presence seemed to give the sufferers courage to bear their pain, for the light that shone from her clear, gray eyes was above the things of a merely earthly existence and lifted them out of their bodies, to some extent, making them impervious to what would have otherwise been excruciating anguish; surgeons, at that time, did not recognize the mental att.i.tude of their patients, to any great extent, and they marveled at the influence of the mistress of the mansion on the hill, attributing it, in part, to the evident superiority of the young woman to those with whom she had been a.s.sociated in Cuba.

In pa.s.sing among the little cots, Ruth, at length, came to the one beside which Estrella was standing, anxiously looking into her patient's flushed face, for, with returning strength, Manuello's fever had risen; Ruth put one hand on the girl's shoulder and drew her away from the cot for a moment while she whispered to her:

"Do not weary yourself too much, my Dear, for we must keep our strength so as to be able to help others ... you seem distressed ... do you know your patient, personally?"

Estrella was only too glad to tell her kind and understanding friend just the situation in which she found herself, so that, when the young Cuban opened his large, dark eyes and looked about him in astonishment, it was upon Ruth's face he gazed instead of on Estrella's whom the former had sent into another part of the work of caring for the wounded.

"Where am I?" moaned Manuello. "What has happened to me, now?"

"You have been sorely wounded in the service of your country, my brave fellow ... you are now in a hospital where you will receive every possible care and attention," answered Ruth in a low, yet clear tone of voice. "You are in the hands of those who appreciate what you have done and greatly desire to a.s.sist in your recovery."

Having a.s.sured himself that he was among friends, he began to make inquiries as to the nature of his wound, wondering how long it would be necessary for him to remain as he was then, but Ruth only told him that he must not talk and must use every precaution he could to prevent increase of the fever that was now high enough to demand the use of the handy little thermometer that Ruth, in common with the other amateur nurses with whom she had studied, had learned how to operate; she promptly thrust this little fever-gauge into his mouth and told him to keep it there quietly until she took it away; gazing at her as if she were a creature from another world, Manuello lay there quiescent and tractable, all his wild nature being centred upon his desire to again be the free, strong being he had but recently been.

Old Mage peered into the room where the cots of the wounded soldiers and sailors had been placed and caught a glimpse of her dear young lady as she stood by the bedside of Manuello; he had just opened his eyes, and, as he lay there with his black curls touching the white pillow, he reminded the old woman very much of another handsome, dark young fellow whom she believed to be lying in his narrow grave in the little cemetery ... the narrow grave in which she had buried the wedding-ring that had brought so much sorrow to the one whom she loved best in all the world: as the old woman looked at the dark face on the pillow she noticed the angry scar that disfigured it and thought that it might have changed the face she remembered as without a blemish so that she would have difficulty in recognizing it; her mind began to travel along the line of thought suggested by this possibility and she determined to rid Ruth of the necessity of attending to her former husband, at least, if her most dire suspicions should prove to be well founded; she at once remembered that she, herself, had not seen the corpse of the man interred as Victorio Colenzo and she knew very well how earthly death will change the appearance of a human being's body ... then she thought of what had been told to her as to how the man had died ... altogether it seemed to her very possible that the man she had seen in the little cemetery on the day of the funeral she had attended with Estrella might have been some one closely resembling Manuello, so that, perhaps, Estrella's foster brother had been buried in the supposed grave of Victorio Colenzo, who, wis.h.i.+ng to be free from both entangling alliances he had made in San Domingo, had allowed the name under which he had entered into them to be placed upon the simple head-stone that marked the grave of another man.

As soon as old Mage had arrived at the conclusion above described, she acted on it at once by slipping stealthily up to Ruth and whispering to her:

"Come away, my Pretty; you are needed; there is someone outside who wishes to speak to you at once. I will take your place."

Ruth, thinking the summons important, yielded her place for a moment, intending to return within a very few moments, but no sooner had old Mage a.s.sumed charge of the patient than she began to devise ways and means by which she hoped to prolong the stay of her dear young lady, for it seemed to her to be too much for her to bear ... to care for her recreant husband under all the trying circ.u.mstances.

The first thing that the new nurse did would have been severely criticized by the head surgeon had his attention not been fully occupied in another part of the large room; to begin with, instead of smoothing back the dark hair from the man's forehead as it would seem to one observing her from the rear she was doing, she very deliberately pulled the handful of curls she was clutching, hoping to make him open his eyes so that she could continue her scrutiny of him in order to be as certain as possible of his suspected ident.i.ty; this ruse succeeded, for Manuello's large, dark brown eyes flew open and were fixed in horror on the face bending over him; it was quite a different countenance than the one he had last seen beside him, for old Mage never had been a beauty and the loss of her teeth had not added to her appearance while the ferocity of her glance was accentuated by the mult.i.tude of criss-cross wrinkles which surrounded the light blue eyes out of which she was glaring at him; the words she hissed in his ear added to the confusion under which the helpless man was laboring:

"I thought that you were dead and buried out of sight ... you hateful, low-lived pup! How dare you be brought into her place, now? If I did just right, I do believe I'd choke the life out of you while you can't fight back! The girl's here, too ... you must be a devil in human form!

You ought to be burning in h.e.l.l!"

The object that had led old Mage to make this attack upon the wounded man was about to be accomplished, for, with a wild scream, he vaulted over the foot of the little cot and bounded through the open doorway as if he were pursued by demons; his temporary nurse did not try to prevent his exit which was what she had longed to bring about, although the manner of his going startled even her, as she had no idea of the effect that her hasty words would have upon the guilty spirit of the man whose crimes, it seemed to him, had found him out; the new wound he had that day received, was not of a nature to impede his progress for a short distance, and he almost instantly disappeared from among the nurses and surgeons; his wild expression so impressed all whom he met before he reached the outskirts of the hospital grounds that he was again a fugitive, hunted, this time, by both friends and enemies.

As Ruth was about to return to her patient, for she could find no immediate need of her presence elsewhere, she met an excited nurse who told her of having seen an excessively active young man flying out into the open, clad only in hospital garb.

Ruth was hurrying to report the circ.u.mstances to the head surgeon and to arrange to have searching parties sent out to bring back her pseudo patient, when, pa.s.sing the cot where old Mage was still stationed, she noted that it was empty; stopping to inquire the reason for this change, her old nurse hurriedly related the facts concerning the exodus of the young man, while she secretly rejoiced at the success of her strategem, for so she chose to denominate the method she had taken of protecting her dear young lady from the nearness of the man she had married through mistaken confidence.

Estrella, having been sent to consult with her friend concerning some matter connected with the welfare of the temporary hospital, came along, just then, and was told what had happened.

"Why," she exclaimed, "where has poor Manuello gone? He is not fit to be outside alone. I am afraid I was a coward to leave him when he needed care. Poor little Tessa would have stayed right with him no matter what he said or did. I have not seen her," she mused, "for a long time, now ... not since a number of days before we came away from home.... I wonder where she is."

Could Estrella have seen her little friend at that moment, she would have lost all pity for Manuello and added to that she already had for poor Tessa, for she was then suffering from the last encounter she had had with the man who had just fled out into the night; although the little peasant would have been proud to have been made the wife of the man whom she madly loved, yet she resisted the idea of being merely his mistress for Father Felix had forcibly impressed upon the minds of the girls of his flock the virtue of chast.i.ty; the consequence of this resistance had been a blow received by herself which had rendered her helpless for the time being, as it had made it impossible for her to walk for any distance, and a slash across one of Manuello's dusky cheeks which she had made with a knife she had happened to have in her hand at the time of his attack.

The heart-sick girl was lying on the rude bed she had made for the man who had left her without aid, in the deserted hut into which Estrella had once peered, while her friend, so far away from her, was bemoaning the fate of her ungrateful former lover.

She had carried some food and water into the hovel upon the day of her last struggle with Manuello and she could creep about the inside of the small building, so that, being hardy and healthy, she had, at that time, subsisted upon the supplies she had on hand, for several days; she was just beginning to crawl carefully out into the surrounding brush where she was glad to find plenty of ripe cactus-fruit and other wild edibles; she was very lonely and frightened but she took her condition as a punishment for the sins she had committed since she had tried to a.s.sist Manuello in spite of the fact that she had known him to be a criminal; she told her beads, over and over, using the small rosary which she had always worn about her neck, and, as she kissed the crucifix attached to the beads, she often prayed for the man who was the direct cause of her pitiable condition, for she believed it to be her plain duty to forgive, even though she could not forget, him.

CHAPTER XV

When Manuello escaped from the temporary hospital near Camp McCalla, he directed his eager steps toward the place of his nativity, because, as it seemed to him, he would be safer there than he had recently been; it seemed to him that if he could reach the deserted hut where he had been in concealment before, he could rest and recover while he made plans for his future, for he had decided that it would be dangerous for him to follow the American army any longer, at least for a time.

In devious ways and through the use of means known only to such as he, he managed to reach a point midway between Santiago and Havana in a much shorter time than would have seemed possible to one unversed in the ways of the wilderness; here he encountered, suddenly and unexpectedly, the good Priest whom he had known from childhood, who, also, seemed hurrying in the direction of Havana.

The young man kept away from the habitation of men as much as possible after that, and, footsore and weary, but happy in the thought that he had reached his goal, he arrived, at length, just at sunset, in the outskirts of the village of San Domingo; from there he followed the winding path up which little Tessa had so often toiled in his service, he thought of her but did not regret the blow he had given her; in fact, his anger still burned at white heat whenever he remembered how she had disfigured his features, forgetting altogether what she had done for him, because she had not done everything that he had asked her to do.

At length, he reached the vicinity of the deserted hut and stole up to reconnoitre before entering the ruined habitation; he crept up to one of the small windows and peered within; the sight that met his vision startled him to such an extent that he forgot, for the moment, his habitual caution and remained at the window although he had discovered that the hut was occupied; the room he looked into was dimly lit by the rays of the setting sun which penetrated the dense growth of tropical verdure and found their way into the small western aperture that answered the purpose of a look-out toward the village; Tessa was lying, looking very wan and care-worn, upon the rude bed she had arranged for the man who was then staring at her ... in her thin hand was a crucifix which Father Felix had just given to her ... the good Priest was kneeling upon the rough floor beside the couch and the tears were rolling down his cheeks, for the sight before him would have moved far less tender hearts than his; the girl began to speak in a low voice and Manuello strained his power of hearing to catch the faint words which fell from her pale and trembling lips.

"Good Father," she began, speaking as if at confession, "I beseech you to have mercy upon your sinful daughter; I have done grievous wrong during my short life and I beg you to intercede with the G.o.d of truth and justice before whose judgment seat I will soon appear. I ask you to pray for me, Father Felix, for I am in need of your prayers. I have been a wicked girl in some ways, though not in all, for I have resisted a very strong desire which was a part of my sinful nature and which I believe I have, now, through suffering, gained the victory over."

The girl ceased speaking from sheer weakness, then, and the Priest took the crucifix from her shaking hand and attached it to the cord at his waist, then he lifted his clasped hands in earnest and humble supplication:

"Father Who art in heaven," he prayed, "listen to us who are in Thy gracious Hands, both here and hereafter. Help me to guide this suffering soul aright and help her to walk where she was meant to walk, whether she regains her health and returns to the life she has had, formerly, or whether she pa.s.ses out of this narrow existence and goes into eternity before another morning dawns. Look down, dear Father, in mercy on us who are Thy humble servants. Amen."

"Father Felix," began the sick girl, "I must confess to you something that has lain heavily upon my conscience for many weeks. I am rejoiced that you have found me for I will die easier to know that you have the secrets that I have been keeping in my heart, being unable to come to the refectory and tell you what I must, now, impart to you. A heinous crime was committed in San Domingo some months ago, as I believe by one whom you and I both know; I have withheld my suspicions from the authorities and, in so doing, I feel that I have done wrong, Father. I wish to tell you all I know, now, and let you do what you think best ...

it will relieve my heart of a very heavy load to tell this to you.

Manuello...."

Before her lips could utter the next word, the door of the hut which had been leaning over the opening designed for it as it had long been guiltless of hinges, was violently thrust aside and the subject of the remarks Tessa was about to make, rudely entered and advanced to the side of the couch upon which the girl was lying; the livid scar upon his dark face combined with the pallor that had followed the fever he had been having, the freshly bandaged wound, the limp that had followed the rough dressing of the bullet-punctured leg of the man, combined with the fierce determination that characterized each one of his movements, altogether made a most unpleasant appearance.

Father Felix quietly rose and stepped between the sufferer on the couch and the young Cuban who regarded the Priest with no respect in the expression of his countenance, but rather with contempt and lack of personal fear; he attempted to shove him aside so that he might again look down on the trembling occupant of the rude bed, but found that Father Felix was standing firmly on a st.u.r.dy pair of legs which had had good exercise in tramping about the hills and valleys in pursuit of his chosen profession of saving the souls of those who needed his ministrations; Manuello glared at him and snarled out: