Then, afterward, there was a surprise--a genuine surprise--in the form of a banquet at the big mess shelter, with an orchestra concealed behind a screen of fresh-cut palm-leaves stuck into the soft earth. This was the men's part of the celebration, the official compliment to Cuba's guest. It was a poorly furnished banquet, with a service of tin and granite ware and chipped china, and there was little to eat, but the true spirit of festivity was present. The Lone Star emblem of the new Republic was draped with the Stars and Stripes, and there were many speeches.
Norine's protests at leaving Esteban went unheeded, and Leslie Branch escorted her in place of the bridegroom, who lay blissfully dreaming in his hammock. Her amazement passed all bounds when, from the hidden recess behind the palm-leaves, came not the music of mandolins and guitars, but the strains of a balanced orchestra under the leadership of Cuba's most eminent bandmaster. Whence the players had come, where they had found their instruments, was a mystery, but they played well, divinely, so it seemed to the music-hungry diners. Such a banquet as that was! Some one had contributed a demijohn of wine, and there was coffee, too, at the last, made from the berries of some jungle plant. The chef, once famous at the Inglaterra, was forced to appear and take homage for this final triumph.
Rosa, very dainty in her borrowed nurse's uniform, was round-eyed, timid; she evoked much admiration, but when she was addressed as Senora O'Reilly she blushed to the roots of her hair and shrank close to her husband's side. To feel herself secure, to see on all sides friendly faces, to know that these fine men and women--there were numerous good Cuban matrons present--were her own people and meant her well, was almost unbelievable. She had so long been hidden, she had so long feared every stranger's glance, it was not strange that she felt ill at ease, and that the banquet was a grave ordeal for her.
Branch proved to be a happy choice as Esteban's proxy, for he relieved Norine's anxiety and smothered her apprehensions. When called upon to speak he made a hit by honestly expressing his relief at escaping the further hazards of this war. Prompted by some freakish perversity, and perhaps unduly stimulated by the wine he had drunk, he made open confession of his amazing cowardice.
O'Reilly interpreted for him and well-nigh every sentence evoked laughter. El Demonio's heroic reputation had preceded him, therefore his unsmiling effort to ridicule himself struck the audience as a new and excruciatingly funny phase of his eccentricity. Encountering this blank wall of disbelief, Branch waxed more earnest, more convincing; in melancholy detail he described his arrant timidity, his cringing fear of pain, his abhorrence of blood and steel. His elongated face was genuinely solemn, his voice trembled, his brow grew damp with unpleasant, memories; he seemed bent upon clearing his conscience once for all. But he succeeded only in convulsing his hearers. Women giggled, men wiped tears from their eyes and declared he was a consummate actor and the rarest, the most fantastic humorist they had ever listened to. They swore that Cuba had lost, in him, a peerless champion. When he had finished they cheered him loudly and the orchestra broke into a rousing military march.