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Updated: June 17, 2025
My companion's prophetic foreboding proved but too correct, for on nearing the camp we were met by an aide-de-camp of the commander-in-chief, who informed me that, on that very morning, all communication between the foreign ships of war and the besieged city had been prohibited. Don Cosme's journey, then, would be in vain. I explained this, advising him to return to his family.
"There is still a hope, Don Cosme," said I, "and that, perhaps, rests with yourself." The thought had struck me that a Spaniard of Don Cosme's evident rank and wealth might be enabled to procure access to the city by means of his consul, and through the Spanish ship of war that I recollected was lying off San Juan.
I remember very well, too, Don Cosme's reply, which was given with a half-smile, half-grin somewhat cold, though not disagreeable in its expression. It was thus: "Captain when the war is over." Don Cosme had no intention that his daughters should become widows before they had fairly been wives.
"Bah! Captain; it would be bad if I could not defend my own calling," replied my comrade, with a laugh. "You think, then, that we are in the hands of Cenobio's men." "I am sure of it, Captain. Sacre! had it been Jarauta's band, we would have been in heaven that is, our souls and our bodies would now be embellishing some of the trees upon Don Cosme's plantation. Heaven protect us from Jarauta!
But the knocking was more like a scraping and it was followed by a low whine. For a second Sheila's head filled with a fog of terror and then came a homely little begging bark, just the throaty, snuffling sob of a homeless puppy. Sheila took Cosme's six-shooter, saw that it was loaded, and, standing in the shelter of the door, she slowly opened it.
We were within less than a league of Don Cosme's rancho, and still the evidence of ruin and plunder continued the evidence, too, of a retaliatory vengeance; for on entering a glade, the mutilated body of a soldier lay across the path. He was upon his back, with open eyes glaring upon the moon. His tongue and heart were cut out, and his left arm had been struck off at the elbow-joint.
Perhaps Cosme would be back before night. He and the parson would have waited for the storm to be over before they made their start. She believed in her own excuses for five uneasy days, and then she believed in the worst of all her fears. She had a hundred to choose from Cosme's desertion, Cosme's death.... One day she spent walking to and fro with her nails driven into her palms.
Cosme's cigarette burned between his stiff fingers. "What do you mean?" he asked, hoarse with the effort of his self-control. She looked at him sharply now. "Are you Paul Carey Hilliard's son the son of Roxana Hilliard?" she asked. She pointed a finger at him. "Yes," he answered with thin lips. His eyes narrowed. His face was all Latin, all cruel.
"He insulted me!" gasped Sheila. "He dared to insult me!" She was dramatic with her helpless young rage. "He said I wasn't fit to to be the mother of his children. And" she laughed angrily, handling behind Cosme's back the weapon that she had been too merciful to use "and his mother is a murderess, found guilty of murder and of worse!" A sort of ripple of sound behind made her turn.
Cosme's thoughts outran it, leaping toward their gaudy goal ... a journey out to life and a journey back to love no wonder his golden eyes shone and his cheeks flushed. "You look almighty glad to be going out of here," the driver made comment. Hilliard laughed an explosive and excited laugh. "No almighty gladder than I shall be to be coming back again," he prophesied.
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