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.
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