Rainbow's End Part 14

Pondering such thoughts as these, O'Reilly returned to his hotel. As he sat in the cafe, sipping an orangeade, he heard some one speaking in atrocious Spanish, and looked up to see that another American had entered. The stranger was a tall, funereal young man, with pallid cheeks and hollow, burning eyes: he was asking for ice-water, but what he said resembled anything except the language of the country.

"Hey, George!" he cried. "Try gimme a va.s.so of agwa con yellow." He p.r.o.nounced the words with elaborate pains. "Make it a long one."

A waiter eyed him tolerantly, but with no faintest sign of understanding.

"Agwa con yellow--agwa with ice. Ice! ICE!" the man repeated loudly.

Still failing of a response, he shouted, "Don't you know what 'ice'

is?" He wrapped his long, lean arms about himself and s.h.i.+vered. "Cold!

Icie! Freezum! Br-r-r! Savvy?"

Inspiration came to the waiter; a smile irradiated his countenance, and with a murmured apology for his stupidity he hurried away.

O'Reilly stepped over to the stranger's table and introduced himself.

"The hotel-keeper in Neuvitas told me I'd find you here," he said.

"Your name is--"

"Branch; Leslie Branch. So Carbajal said you'd find me here, eh? Oh, the greasy little liar. He didn't believe it. He thought his cooking would have killed me, long ago, and it nearly did." This time Mr.

Branch's bony frame underwent a genuine shudder and his face was convulsed with loathing. "Did you try his b.u.t.ter? 'Made in Denmark'

during the early Victorian period. I hate antiques--can't eat anything oily. Carbajal's in the Secret Service. Nice fat little spy."

"So I suspected."

Mr. Branch's beverage appeared at this moment. With a flourish the waiter placed a small gla.s.s and a bottle of dark liquid before him.

Branch stared at it, then rolled a fiercely smoldering eye upward.

"What's that?" he inquired.

O'Reilly read the label. "It's bitters," said he.

"BITTERS! And I asked for 'yellow'--a gla.s.s of agwa with yellow."

Branch's voice shook. "I'm dying of a fever, and this ivory-billed toucan brings me a quart of poison. Bullets!" It was impossible to describe the suggestion of profanity with which the speaker colored this innocuous expletive. "Weak as I am, I shall gnaw his windpipe." He bared his teeth suggestively and raised two talon-like hands.

The waiter was puzzled, but not alarmed. He embraced himself as his customer had done, and shuddered; then pointing at the bitters, he nodded encouragingly.

O'Reilly forestalled an outburst by translating his countryman's wants.

"Un vaso de agua con hielo," said he, and the attendant was all apologies.

"So, you speak the lingo?" marveled Mr. Branch. "Well, I can't get the hang of it. Don't like it. Don't like anything Spanish. h.e.l.l of a country, isn't it? where the ice is 'YELLOW' and the b.u.t.ter is 'MEANT TO KILL YOU,' and does."

O'Reilly laughed. "You've been studying a guide-book, 'with complete glossary of Spanish phrases.' By the way, Carbajal said you are a writer."

Mr. Branch nodded listlessly. "I'm supposed to report this insurrection, but the Spaniards won't let me. They edit my stuff to suit themselves. I'm getting tired of the farce."

"Going home?"

"Don't dare." The speaker tapped his concave chest. "b.u.m lungs. I came down here to shuffle off, and I'm waiting for it to happen. What brings you to Cuba?"

"I'm here for my health, too." The real invalid stared. "I have rheumatism."

"Going to sweat it out, eh? Well, there's nothing to do but sweat"--Branch was racked by a coughing spasm that shook his reedy frame--"sweat and cough. Bullets! No mistake about that hospital bark, is there?" When he had regained his breath he said: "See here! I'm going to take a chance with you, for I like your looks. My newspaper work is a bluff: I don't send enough stuff to keep me alive. I come here to cure my lungs, and--I want you to help me do it."

O'Reilly stared at the man in surprise. "How can I help you?" he asked.

"By taking me with you."

"With me? Where?"

"To the Insurrectos, of course."

The men eyed each other fixedly. "What makes you think--" O'Reilly began.

"Oh, don't say it! I've got a hunch! I don't know what your game is--probably dynamite: there's a story that the rebels have sent for some American experts to teach them how to use the stuff, and G.o.d knows they need instruction! Anyhow, I can't swallow that rheumatism talk. I thought you might give me a lift. Take me along, will you?"

"And how would that benefit your cough?" Johnnie inquired, curiously.

Mr. Branch hesitated. "Well, I'll tell you," he said, after a moment.

"I'm afraid to die this way, by inches, and hours. I'm scared to death." It seemed impossible that the sick man's cheeks could further blanch, but they became fairly livid, while a beading of moisture appeared upon his upper lip. "G.o.d! You've no idea how it gets on a fellow's nerves to see himself slipping--slipping. I'd like to end it suddenly, like that!" He voiced the last sentence abruptly and snapped his fingers. "I've tried to b.u.mp off, but--no courage! Funny, isn't it?

Well, the doctors told me another New York winter would put me in a rosewood show-case. I've tried Colorado and it's no good. See? So I decided to join the Cubans and--let a bullet do the trick. I never did like the Spaniards--their cooking is too greasy. Then, too, I'd like to have a thrill before I cash in--taste 'the salt of life,' as somebody expressed it. That's war. It's the biggest game in the world. What do you think of the idea?"

"Not much," O'Reilly said, honestly.

"Difference in temperament. I suppose it IS a sick fancy, but I've got it. Unfortunately, now that I'm here, these Romeos won't let me get out of town. If you're what I think you are, give me a hand. I'm a rotten coward, but I'll fight if the Cubans will take me."

"Where are the Cubans?"

"Oh, they're out yonder in the hills. I know all about 'em. Come over to my quarters, and I'll show you a map, if you're interested."

"I am," said O'Reilly, and, rising, he followed his new acquaintance.

VIII

THE SPANISH DOUBLOON

On the whole, Pancho Cueto's plans had worked smoothly. After denouncing the Varona twins as traitors he had managed to have himself appointed trustee for the crown, for all their properties, consummation for which he had worked from the moment he read that letter of Esteban's on the morning after Dona Isabel's death. To be sure, the overseer had acquired t.i.tle, of a sort, to the plantation by paying the taxes over a period of years, but it was the quinta itself which he desired, the Quinta de Esteban with its hidden gold. That there was a treasure Cueto had never doubted, and, once the place was his to do with as he chose, he began his search.

Cueto was a tireless, thorough-going man, therefore he did not set about his explorations in the haphazard manner of Dona Isabel.

Commencing at the lower edge of the grounds, he ripped them up with a series of deep trenches and cross-cuts. It was a task that required the labor of many men for several weeks, and when it was finished there was scarcely a growing thing left upon the place. Only a few of the larger trees remained. Cueto was disappointed at finding nothing, but he was not discouraged. Next he tore down the old slave barrac.o.o.ns and the outbuildings, after which he completely wrecked the residence itself.

He pulled it apart bit by bit, brick by brick. He even dug up its foundations, but without the reward of so much as a single peseta.

Finally, when the villa was but a heap of rubbish and the grounds a scar upon the slope of La c.u.mbre, he desisted, baffled, incredulous, while all Matanzas laughed at him. Having sacrificed his choicest residence, he retired in chagrin to the plantation of La Joya.

But Cueto was now a man with a grievance. He burned with rage, and his contempt for the boy and girl he had wronged soured into hatred. Such time as he did not spend in racking his brain to explain the disappearance of the dead Esteban's riches, he devoted to cursing the living Esteban and his sister, who, it seemed to him, were somehow to blame for his wrecked hopes.

In time he began to realize also that so long as they lived they would jeopardize his tenure of their property. Public feeling, at present, was high; there was intense bitterness against all rebels; but the war would end some day. What then? Cueto asked himself. Sympathy was ever on the side of the weak and oppressed. There would come a day of reckoning.