Into Rosa's life, however, there had come one interest which she could not share with her twin--that was her love for O'Reilly. Spanish-reared women, as a rule, do not play with love; when it comes they welcome it, even though it be that first infatuation so often scorned by older, colder people. So it was with Rosa Varona. Whatever might have been the true nature of her first feeling for the Irish-American, suffering and meditation had deepened and strengthened it into a mature and genuine passion. As the wise men of old found wisdom in cave or desert, so Rosa in her solitude had learned the truth about herself. Now, in the hour of her extremity, thoughts of O'Reilly acted as a potent medicine. Her hungry yearning for him and her faith in his coming stimulated her desire to live, and so aided her recovery.
The day arrived when her brain was normal and when she could creep about the hut. But she was only the ghost of the girl she had been; she seldom spoke, and she never smiled. She sat for hours staring out into the sunshine, and when she found tears upon her cheeks she was surprised, for it seemed to her that she must long ago have shed the very last.
Asensio, likewise recovered, but he, too, was sadly changed. There was no longer any martial spirit in him; he feared the Spaniards, and tales of their atrocities cowed him.
Then Cobo came into the Yumuri. The valley, already well-nigh deserted, was filled to the brim with smoke from burning fields and houses, and through it the sun showed like a copper shield. Refugees passed the bohio, bound farther into the hills, and Asensio told the two women that he and they must also go. So the three gathered up what few things they could carry on their backs and fled.
They did not stop until they had gained the fastnesses of the Pan de Matanzas. Here they built a shelter and again took up the problem of living, which was now more difficult than ever.
Asensio would not have been greatly inconvenienced by the change had he been alone, for certain fruits grew wild in the forests, and the earth, where the Spaniards had not trod, was full of roots upon which a creature of his primitive habits could have managed to live. But hampered as he was by two women, one of whom was as delicate as a flower, Asensio found his task extremely difficult. And it grew daily more difficult; for there were other people here in the woods, and, moreover, the country round about was being steadily scoured by the enemy, who had orders to destroy every living, growing thing that was capable of sustaining human life. Stock was butchered and left to rot, trees were cut down, root- fields burned. Weyler's policy of frightfulness was in full sway, and starvation was driving its reluctant victims into his net. Meanwhile roving bands of guerrillas searched out and killed the stronger and the more tenacious families.