Rainbow's End Part 36

"Come, come! Speak up! What does this mean?" Lopez's voice grew stern.

"She must have be-been asleep. I just grabbed--You know. I--" Branch's face became suddenly stricken. "Look out!" he shouted, hoa.r.s.ely. "She's going to cry, or something."

He was right; the baby showed every sign of a firm determination to voice her indignation at the outrage she had suffered. Her hand stole out of her mouth, her fists closed, her face puckered ominously. Lopez stooped, wrapped her in a sheet, then took her awkwardly in his arms.

He bent a blazing glance upon the kidnapper, but he had no chance to speak before the storm of wailings broke.

News of Leslie's exploit was spreading. Men were shouting and gesticulating to their comrades to come and see El Demonio's spoils.

There was a great chattering and crowding and no little smothered laughter. Meanwhile, Colonel Lopez was using every desperate device to soothe the infant, but without success. At last he strode up to Leslie and extended his burden.

"Here," he said, harshly, "she's yours. I surrender her."

Leslie drew back. "No, you don't! I wouldn't touch her for a thousand dollars!" he cried.

But Lopez was firm. He spoke in a tone of command: "Do as I tell you.

Take her. A fine outrage, to steal a baby! What are we going to do with her? We can't send her back--the town is crazy. I've no doubt I shall hear from this."

In spite of Leslie's choking protests, in spite of his feeble resistance, Lopez pressed the noisy stranger into his arms, then turned to his men and directed them to be off.

Branch remained motionless. He was stupefied; he held the baby gingerly, not daring to put it down, dreading to keep it; his eyes were rolling, he began to perspire freely. Stretching a timid, detaining hand toward Lopez, he inquired, huskily, "What shall I do with her?"

"G.o.d knows. I don't," snapped the officer. "I shall have to think, but meanwhile I hold you responsible for her. Come now, we must be going."

Leslie swallowed hard; his face became overspread with a sicklier pallor. "What'll I do--when she gets HUNGRY?"

Lopez could not restrain a smile. "You should have thought about that, compadre. Well, I know where there is a milk cow not three leagues from here. I'll send a man to borrow it from the owner and drive it to our camp. Or perhaps"--his handsome face hardened again--"perhaps you would prefer to take this child back where you found it?"

"No--I--Oh, they'd tear me limb from limb!"

"Exactly."

Branch turned his head from side to side in desperation. He wet his lips. "It's the youngest one I ever had anything to do with. Maybe it isn't used to cow's milk," he ventured.

"Unfortunately that is the only kind I can offer it. Take care of it until I find some way of notifying its people."

O'Reilly had looked on at his friend's embarra.s.sment with malicious enjoyment, but, realizing that Branch would undoubtedly try to foist upon him the responsibility of caring for the baby, he slipped away and rode over to where Captain Judson was engaged in making a litter upon which to carry the sick prisoner they had rescued from the jail. When he had apprised the artilleryman of what Branch had found in his roll of purloined bedding the latter smiled broadly.

"Serves him right," Judson chuckled. "We'll make him sit up nights with it. Maybe it'll improve his disposition." More seriously he explained: "This chap here is all in. I'm afraid we aren't going to get him through."

Following Judson's glance, O'Reilly beheld an emaciated figure lying in the shade of a near-by guava-bush. The man was clad in filthy rags, his face was dirty and overgrown with a month's beard; a pair of restless eyes stared unblinkingly at the brazen sky. His lips were moving; from them issued a steady patter of words, but otherwise he showed no sign of life.

"You said he was starving." Johnnie dismounted and lent Judson a hand with his task.

"That's what I thought at first, but he's sick. I suppose it's that d.a.m.ned dungeon fever."

"Then we'd better look after him ourselves. These Cubans are mighty careless, you know. We can swing him between our horses, and--"

Judson looked up to discover that Johnnie was poised rigidly, his mouth open, his hands halted in midair. The sick man's voice had risen, and O'Reilly, with a peculiar expression of amazement upon his face, was straining his ears to hear what he said.

"Eh? What's the matter?" Judson inquired.

For a moment O'Reilly remained frozen in his att.i.tude, then without a word he strode to the sufferer. He bent forward, staring into the vacant, upturned face. A cry burst from his throat, a cry that was like a sob, and, kneeling, he gathered the frail, filthy figure into his arms.

"ESTEBAN!" he cried. "ESTEBAN! This is O'Reilly. O'Rail-ye! Don't you know me? O'Reilly, your friend, your brother! For G.o.d's sake, tell me what they've done to you! Look at me, Esteban! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!

Oh, ESTEBAN!"

Such eagerness, such thankfulness, such pa.s.sionate pity were in his friend's hoa.r.s.e voice that Judson drew closer. He noticed that the faintest flame of reason flickered for an instant in the sick man's hollow eyes; then they began to rove again, and the same rustling whisper recommenced. Judson had heard something of O'Reilly's story; he had heard mention of Esteban and Rosa Varona; he stood, therefore, in silent wonderment, listening to the incoherent words that poured from his friend's lips. O'Reilly held the boy tenderly in his arms; tears rolled down his cheeks as he implored Esteban to hear and to heed him.

"TRY to hear me! TRY!" There was fierce agony in the cry. "Where is Rosa? ... Rosa? ... You're safe now; you can tell me. ... You're safe with O'Reilly. ... I came back ... I came back for you and Rosa. ...

Where is she? ... Is she--dead?"

Other men were a.s.sembling now. The column was ready to move, but Judson signaled to Colonel Lopez and made known the ident.i.ty of the sick stranger. The colonel came forward swiftly and laid a hand upon O'Reilly's shoulder, saying:

"So! You were right, after all. Esteban Varona didn't die. G.o.d must have sent us to San Antonio to deliver him."

"He's sick, SICK!" O'Reilly said, huskily. "Those Spaniards! Look what they've done to him." His voice changed. He cried, fiercely: "Well, I'm late again. I'm always just a little bit too late. He'll die before he can tell me--"

"Wait! Take hold of yourself. We'll do all that can be done to save him. Now come, we must be going, or all San Antonio will be upon us."

O'Reilly roused. "Put him in my arms," he ordered. "I'll carry him to camp myself."

But Lopez shook his head, saying, gently: "It's a long march, and the litter would be better for him. Thank Heaven we have an angel of mercy awaiting us, and she will know how to make him well."

When the troop resumed its retreat Esteban Varona lay suspended upon a swinging bed between O'Reilly's and Judson's horses. Although they carried him as carefully as they could throughout that long hot journey, he never ceased his babbling and never awoke to his surroundings.

XX

EL DEMONIO'S CHILD

During the next few days O'Reilly had reason to bless the happy chance which had brought Norine Evans to Cuba. During the return journey from San Antonio de los Banos he had discovered how really ill Esteban Varona was, how weak his hold upon life. The young man showed the marks of wasting illness and of cruel abuse; starvation, neglect, and disease had all but done for him. After listening to his ravings, O'Reilly began to fear that the poor fellow's mind was permanently affected. It was an appalling possibility, one to which he could not reconcile himself. To think that somewhere in that fevered brain was perhaps locked the truth about Rosa's fate, if not the secret of her whereabouts, and yet to be unable to wring an intelligent answer to a single question, was intolerable. The hours of that ride were among the longest O'Reilly had ever pa.s.sed.

But Norine Evans gave him new heart. She took complete charge of the sick man upon his arrival in camp; then in her brisk, matter-of-fact way she directed O'Reilly to go and get some much-needed rest. Esteban was ill, very ill, she admitted; there was no competent doctor near, and her own facilities for nursing were primitive indeed; nevertheless, she expressed confidence that she could cure him, and reminded O'Reilly that nature has a blessed way of building up a resistance to environment. As a result of her good cheer O'Reilly managed to enjoy a night's sleep.

Leslie Branch was later than the others in arriving, for the baby proved to be a trial and a handicap. His comrades had refused him any a.s.sistance on the homeward journey. They expressed a deep, hoa.r.s.e condemnation of his conduct, and pretended to consider that he had sacrificed all claims to their friends.h.i.+p and regard.

Branch took this seriously, and he was in a state bordering upon desperation when he reached camp. In the hope of unloading his unwelcome burden upon Norine Evans he hurried directly to her tent. But Norine had heard the story; Lopez had warned her; therefore she waved him away.

"Don't ask me to mother your stolen child," she said.

"Oh, but you've GOT to," he declared in a panic. "You've just GOT to."

"Well, I won't. In the first place, I have a sick man in my tent."

"But look! Listen! This baby dislikes me. I've nearly dropped it a dozen times. I--I'm going to leave it, anyhow."