It was a balmy, languid morning about two weeks after O'Reilly's return to the City among the Leaves. The Cubitas Mountains were green and sparkling from a recent shower; wood fires smoldered in front of the bark huts, sending up their wavering streamers of blue; a pack-train from the lower country was unloading fresh vegetables in the main street, and a group of ragged men were disputing over them. Some children were playing baseball near by.
In a hammock swung between two trees Esteban Varona lay, listening to the admonitions of his nurse.
Johnnie O'Reilly had just bade them both a hearty good morning and now Norine was saying: "One hour, no more. You had a temperature again last night, and it came from talking too much."
"Oh, I'm better this morning," Esteban declared. "I'm getting so that I want to talk. I was too tired at first, but now--"
"NOW, you will do exactly as you are told. Remember, it takes me just one hour to make my rounds, and if you are not through with your tales of blood and battle when I get back you'll have to finish them to-morrow." With a nod and a smile she left.
As Esteban looked after her his white teeth gleamed and his hollow face lit up.
"She brings me new life," he told O'Reilly. "She is so strong, so healthy, so full of life herself. She is wonderful! When I first saw her bending over me I thought I was dreaming. Sometimes, even yet, I think she cannot be real. But she is, eh?"
"She is quite substantial," O'Reilly smiled.
"I can tell when she is anywhere near, for my illness leaves me. It's a fact! And her hands--Well, she lays them on my head, and it no longer hurts; the fever disappears. There is some cool, delicious magic in her touch; it makes a fellow want to live. You have perhaps noticed it?"
"N-no! You see, she never lays her hands on my head. However, I dare say you're right. All the sick fellows talk as you do."
Esteban looked up quickly; his face darkened. "She--er--nurses OTHERS, eh? I'm not the only one?"
"Well, hardly."
There was a brief pause; then Esteban shifted his position and his tone changed. "Tell me, have you heard any news?"
"Not yet, but we will hear some before long I'm sure."
"Your faith does as much for me as this lady's care. But when you go away, when I'm alone, when I begin to think--"
"Don't think too much; don't permit yourself to doubt," O'Reilly said, quickly. "Take my word for it, Rosa is alive and we'll find her somewhere, somehow. You heard that she had fallen into Cobo's hands when he sacked the Yumuri, but now we know that she and the negroes were living in the Pan de Matanzas long after that. In the same way Lopez assured me positively that you were dead. Well, look at you! It shows how little faith we can put in any story. No, Rosa is safe, and General Gomez will soon have word of her. That's what I've been waiting for--that and what you might have to tell me."