Go back to your own country now, and if your grief has
made you one of us in sympathy, tell the world what that black
butcher in Havana is doing, and beg your Government to recognize
our belligerency, so that we may have arms. ARMS!"
It was some time before O'Reilly spoke; then he said, quietly: "I
am not going back. I am going to stay here and look for Rosa."
"So!" exclaimed the colonel. "Well, why not? So long as we do not
know precisely what has happened to her, we can at least hope.
But, if I were you, I would rather think of her as dead than as a
prisoner in some concentration camp. You don't know what those
camps are like, my friend, but I do. Now I shall leave you. One
needs to be alone at such an hour--eh?" With a pressure of his
hand, Colonel Lopez walked away into the darkness.
Judson and his adventurous countryman did not see O'Reilly that
night, nor, in fact, did any one. But the next morning he appeared
before General Gomez. He was haggard, sick, listless. The old
Porto-Rican had heard from Lopez in the mean time; he was
sympathetic.
"I am sorry you came all the way to hear such bad news," he said.
"War is a sad, hopeless business."
"But I haven't given up hope," O'Reilly said. "I want to stay here
and--and fight."
"I inferred as much from what Lopez told me." The general nodded
his white head.
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